You Got Growin' Up To Do
by wright.or.wrong
Summary: Or maybe it's that she has changed and she isn't quite as willing to fall back into the role of the group's sweet, innocent little baby.
1. Chapter 1

You Got Growin' Up To Do

Timeline/Spoilers: somewhere in Season 5, post-Geothermal Escapism

Disclaimer: I own nada.

Warning: Firmly J/A, but there are some references to Annie/other stuff. Oh, and Annie is definitely a little angry and frustrated here (probably because I'm feeling a little angry and frustrated these days).

* * *

She is halfway through her third strawberry watermelon margarita when she looks up and finds Jeff gazing at her, almost fondly, from across the table.

They made it to Dave and Buster's in time for happy hour, when her fruity drinks are two-for-one and she's indulging a little more than she might usually. Abed is off playing Dance Dance Revolution and Shirley and Britta are in the bathroom, so she thinks that maybe Jeff's been stuck with babysitting duty. Shirley has been suspicious of a couple of middle-aged guys in rumpled suits at the bar who, according to her, have been giving Annie the eye since she sat down. As she left the table, Shirley even bent and whispered something to Jeff, probably about how he should defend Annie's virtue with his life or there would be hell to pay.

It is insulting, of course. Annie is more than capable of fending off the unwelcome advances of the midlife crisis crew, though the rest of the group apparently hasn't gotten that memo. They've been back together for three months, and at times, she thinks that they're learning each other all over again.

Maybe it's silly to think that a year of little contact beyond sporadic e-mails, texts, and voice mails could leave them back at square one with each other, but sometimes, that is how she feels. Sure, she saw plenty of Troy and Abed in that time, but she has come to realize that they're slightly different people when they're all together then when they're one on one or broken off into smaller groups.

There's a dynamic that they all naturally fall into when they're in the group, but this time around, something seems slightly off.

Maybe the problem is that they're not all back together – Pierce is gone and Troy is sailing around the world and no matter how many seats are filled at their table, the circle isn't complete any more.

Or maybe it's that she has changed and she isn't quite as willing to fall back into the role of the group's sweet, innocent little baby.

She glares at Jeff, making him the target of all the tipsy annoyance that she feels.

"What?" she demands.

"You have a little…"

He gestures toward his mouth, and maybe there's more tequila in these fruity margaritas then she realizes because she can't seem to make sense of what he is trying to tell her. So Jeff scoots over a couple of chairs to the seat just beside her and reaches out to carefully rub his thumb against the corner of her mouth.

She stays very still, telling herself that she does not feel warmth spreading through her belly like wildfire - or if she does, it's just the alcohol, settling hot and heavy in her gut.

"Sugar," he says, and holds up his thumb so she can see the smudge of sparkling green on his skin.

Her glass is rimmed with the emerald-colored sweetness, and when she looks down, she sees a spot where it's all been rubbed away. When she looks over at Jeff again, he's licking the smear from his finger - there is nothing seductive or suggestive about the gesture really, but something about it sends another jolt through her system and she lowers her head to avoid whatever may or may not be lurking in his eyes.

Because it's just platonic, she reminds herself. Friends wipe sugar or mustard or chocolate off the corner of other friends' mouths and it doesn't mean anything. And maybe they lick it off and that doesn't mean anything either. It isn't an intimate gesture or an invitation for something more; it isn't anything but friendly.

When she looks up, he is still watching her with a vaguely entertained expression, and she panics, her face feeling very warm.

"I really want a puppy," she hears herself blurt out - because she has to steer this conversation somewhere harmless and innocent, somewhere that isn't littered with minefields that she has only recently learned to sidestep.

Of course, she chooses a topic guaranteed to make her sound like a wistful, little girl, so maybe she's fallen back into her role in the group easier than she thought. Jeff cocks his head, smirking in his pretty way. The look on his face suggests amusement and affection, the way she imagines that he might look at a particularly cute, precocious child, and it makes her want to slap him – which, of course, is irrational. But she slides her hands under her thighs anyway, so she isn't tempted.

"Okay…" he says, dragging out the word like he suspects she might be insane.

"Our downstairs neighbors just got the cutest golden retriever puppy," she explains, so he doesn't think that she has totally lost it. "And it reminded me that I've wanted a dog since forever. Well, since I was like eight years old anyway. Every year for my birthday or Chanukah or Christmas, I would beg and beg, and my mother would say that I wasn't old enough, that I wouldn't be able to take care of it. This went for like 6 or 7 years and then my parents got divorced and I got…"

She doesn't need to remind anyone of where she's been - Jeff bobs his head to confirm that fact, more than willing to glide right past that unpleasantness.

"Okay," he says again. "Well, now, you're all grown up. So get a puppy if you want one."

She tilts her head, swirling a swizzle stick around in the pink slush at the bottom of her glass.

"But I'm hardly ever home. And our apartment really isn't that big and I don't want a yappy, little dog. I want a real, big dog and we don't have a yard or anything…"

She is babbling and her voice has that high-pitched whine to it that she hates. But Jeff smiles, taking a sip of his beer.

"What kind of dog are you thinking?"

"In the third grade, my best friend Nicole Spadafina had a black Lab," she says, and it's been years since she thought of Nicole and her dog, but suddenly the image of them is so strong and clear in her mind that it doesn't seem like it can possibly be more than a decade ago since she knew them. "He was probably 80 or 90 pounds, but he was the sweetest dog ever. I want one like that."

Jeff tilts his bottle at her, almost in agreement.

"I had a Lab growing up."

She grins, because there is something so charming about the thought of Jeff with a dog.

"You did?"

"Chocolate, though." He bobs his head almost absently, his expression earnest and pensive in a way that she doesn't usually associate with him. "She was a really good dog."

She tilts her head, trying to look at him from a different angle. The tequila has her head swimming, but his face is still so familiar and precious that she just can't seem to see him any other way than she usually does.

"What's with that look?" he asks after a moment.

"I have a really hard time picturing you as a kid."

It is the truth - it is nearly impossible to imagine Jeff Winger as anything other than the cool, careless, cynical, independent adult that she met five years ago. He huffs out a quiet laugh, shaking his head, and she hears her phone chime inside her purse to announce an incoming text, but she ignores it because she can't think of anything else that could be as important as whatever he is about to tell her.

"I was pretty cute," he says, without a hint of self-consciousness. "Even back then."

She nods, trying to smooth the wrinkles out of the wet cocktail napkin beneath the stem of her glass.

"I can believe that."

When she looks up at him, his smile is the achingly soft and tender kind that sometimes makes her think that she is the only person in the world that he looks at quite that way. But that is a silly, romantic thought, certainly not platonic, so she tries to tamp it down.

Fortunately, Shirley and Britta come back to the table before she can do something embarrassing like ask him if it's true or what it all means.

"What are you two talking about, looking so serious?" Britta asks impishly, as she sinks down in the chair on the other side of Annie.

Jeff shrugs, rubbing his thumbs against the side of his beer bottle.

"Puppies," he says simply.

Britta narrows her eyes, like she doesn't believe him for a second, but she lets the subject go. Annie lifts her fourth strawberry watermelon margarita and takes a long sip.

* * *

She doesn't remember her missed text until the next morning when she crawls out of bed with a dull headache and the taste of sawdust in her mouth.

It's just a message from Jason, wondering if she was free – completely casual, relaxed, and lacking any expectation, like all of his texts. It's not as if they owe each other anything, but she still feels a little guilty for leaving him hanging all night.

She does have an excuse, though – she was drunk on sweet, fruity margaritas and Jeff Winger and his stupid, perfect face.

It may be pathetic as far as excuses go, but she has always cut herself a little slack where her feelings for Jeff are concerned.

Because it's only common sense that getting over someone is nearly impossible when he is always there, every single day. That's what Greendale did – it kept them in constant contact, where she could go days without feeling anything more than annoyance or frustration with him and then he would tilt his head in her direction, grinning in his infuriating way, or pull her aside to talk to her in a low, sincere voice, and she felt herself sinking down into the quicksand of everything that he stirred up in her again. She started to think that she would always relate to him like a teenager with a crush, that there would be always be something about him that could send her giggling with just glance, make her blush with the faintest touch of his fingers.

It took a year of minimal contact with him to make her realize that she wasn't that silly school girl who fantasized about living happily ever after anymore. She didn't wake up each morning missing Jeff Winger. She didn't contrive ways to run into him.

She had her own life, as incomplete as it might be.

She went on dates.

She had sex.

She became a worldly, sophisticated woman.

But now, they've fallen back into each other's lives and they've fallen right back into their old patterns.

Well, not exactly.

Because she doesn't exactly feel like a school girl around him anymore.

She is an adult and he doesn't make her giggle or blush uncontrollably anymore.

But that is the rub, really, because he still stirs up something in her that she is beginning to realize other men just don't. So her feelings have become even more dangerous because maybe it isn't a phase; maybe it isn't something that she can outgrow; maybe it's just something that she is always going to carry with her as long as he is part of her life.

If she'd seen Jason's message last night, she might have left Jeff sitting alone at a table in Dave and Buster's and not fallen under that same old spell again.

Because while there are plenty of things that bug her about Jason, he is, at the very least, safe. He sat in the cubicle next to hers at the pharmaceutical company and always brought her and Stephanie, the woman who sat on the other side of him, coffee in the morning without being asked. She liked that he didn't know anything about her – not her addiction problem, her degree from a third-rate community college, her twisted family life – so she could be whoever she wanted with him, have a fresh start.

Best of all, he was only 29 and seriously good-looking, but in a way that wasn't the least bit intimidating, like there was something almost generic about it so there was no danger of losing her head.

Or her heart.

By the time he asked her out, she already knew that she hated her job and was plagued daily by the frightening vision of spending the next 40 or so years of her life just like this, waking near dawn to spend most of the day in traffic, mindlessly peddling pills and potions to try to reach unattainable sales goals, having to stay late most nights to finish mindless paperwork, eating too-late greasy fast food dinners, and not feeling an ounce of real joy or purpose for even a minute.

She would have done anything to shake things up.

But it only took two dinners for her to realize that Jason wasn't the guy for her. If they weren't gossiping about people from the office, they had nothing to talk to about. She didn't really want to hear about his golf game or fantasy football team, and he had no interest in listening to her detail her favorite episodes of Cold Case Files or the rules of the game that she, Troy and Abed had invented that was a cross between Clue, Monopoly, and Risk.

A the end of their second date, though, he'd kissed her all the same, and for the first time in months, she felt heat mainlining through her veins, reminding her that she was young and alive and the future was a blank page without a single word written on it yet.

Maybe she had become as grown up as Jeff and Britta because she understood in that moment that sex didn't necessarily have to have anything to do with real feelings. It could be about nothing more than feeling good for a little while, and there wasn't any guilt or shame in that.

She honestly didn't want anything more.

Afterward, when they both dressed again, she told Jason that it was obvious that they shouldn't date anymore. He agreed, and surprisingly, there wasn't any real awkwardness between them so they could go back to being merely co-workers. But then, there were a couple of nights when they were both working late or bored at an office party, and they wound up at his condo or her apartment when Troy and Abed were out.

Even now, when they haven't worked together for several months, it still happens.

Jason calls or texts every so often and asks if she wants to get a drink, so she puts on her laciest underwear and meets him. Sometimes, she calls him – like after Pierce's memorial service and will reading when she felt lost and off-kilter – and it's nice because there is never any weirdness, there is never any tension, there is never any sense that they're doing something wrong. It's simple and easy, so they can both just go back to their separate lives for another three, four, or five weeks like it never even happened.

For someone who usually obsesses, overanalyzes, dissects every event in her life until she's dizzy with it, the whole thing is strangely liberating.

So she texts Jason back with her apologies, asking for a rain check, just before she steps into the shower. Even with the warm water pelting her skin, she feels hot and shaky, her headache rattling through her body, all the way from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She is back in her bedroom, toweling off her hair when she sees the icon on her phone that indicates she has a new message. She assumes that it's from Jason, letting her off the hook for last night, but when she scrolls to her messages, it's Jeff's name at the top of the list.

_Coconut water + 3 mile run = hangover gone. You can thank me later._

Her thumb hovers over the delete button for a solid ten seconds before she just turns the whole thing off and flings it on her bed.

At least she endures nearly three hours of misery before she finally gives in, jogging to the grocery store and back for a couple of bottles of coconut water.

She kind of hates that Jeff is right.

* * *

Britta waits until after a committee meeting to pull Annie aside and beg her for a favor.

It isn't a big deal really – she just needs Annie to answer some questions for a project in her Psychology of Gender class so she can write a paper about the psychological differences between men and women – but Annie is tired and doesn't particularly feel like spilling out her deepest, darkest secrets even in the name of academic curiosity. Still, she agrees to help Britta out because they're friends and that's what friends do. Britta needs five men and five women to participate, after all, and it's not like their circle of friends is that large.

"I'm kind of torn," Britta admits as she pulls out the questionnaire. "The feminist in me want to prove that men and women are exactly alike. You know, equals. But there's also part of me that wants us to be better than them. More sensitive, compassionate, loving, yada yada yada. That's really terrible, right?" She shrugs, though it seems almost unapologetic. "But I mean, I practically had to tie Jeff down to get him to do this and you're doing it willingly and generously, so we really are the fairer sex, right?"

Annie shakes her head as she scans the list of questions.

"I just feel like we're always focusing on the ways that we're different. Maybe we should pay more attention to the ways that we're alike."

Britta grins, jabbing at the air with her pen.

"Oh, that's great stuff! I'm totally writing that down so I can put it in my paper. My professor is going to love it!"

Annie starts filling in the little bubbles with her pencil. She has taken personality tests before so none of the questions really surprise her – they do make her uncomfortable, though. She is honest to a fault, so responding to statements like 'I dislike myself' or 'I am afraid I will do the wrong thing' is not exactly her idea of fun. She also finds herself tempted to ask Britta how her answers compare to Jeff's – her initial suspicion is that there is very little overlap, but the more questions that she answers, the more she starts to consider the possibility that they'd fall in line more than not – he might have gone with 'Strongly Agree' while she simply chooses 'Agree', but that's close enough.

Maybe that's why there is so much friction between them – they are more similar than either of them wants to admit.

Britta scans the responses when Annie hands over the paper, but her expression doesn't reveal much of a reaction.

"Great. Thanks so much, Annie. I really appreciate it."

"Anytime," she says brightly, as she grabs her bag.

She feels out of sorts after answering all those personal questions, so she doesn't really feel like going home. She doesn't want to hang out in the library either, though, so she decides to go to the mall.

The one good thing about her job at the pharmaceutical company was that she had some disposal income for a little while, which got her in the habit of shopping and indulging in all sorts of things that she didn't really need without worrying about her checking account balance dwindling down to nearly nothing.

But having returned to Greendale full-time, she is back to a strict budget, trying to scrape by on her savings and a part-time job as a clerk in the Dean's office that barely pays minimum wage. She certainly doesn't have the funds for a shopping spree, but she is feeling a little low so she allows herself the indulgence of a blue button-down blouse that fits her like a glove and a black blazer that nips in just enough to make her waist look tiny.

Sometimes, she misses the flowery little dress and colorful sweaters of years past, but she likes her new look too – it makes her feel serious and powerful, and yeah, maybe even a little sexy.

Like an adult.

Still, when she tries on a gray and white floral brocade dress that twirls in the air around her as she spins in the cramped dressing room, it seems like the perfect compromise between who she is and who she wants to be, so she buys it, even though she has no place to wear it and the price tag makes her cringe just a little.

She stops in Sephora and treats herself to a new perfume too – nothing sickly sweet like the usual body sprays that she picks up at Bath and Body Works. This one has a hint of vanilla, but it's warm and kind of musky, and smells delicious on her skin when she lifts the inside of her wrist to her nose and breathes deep.

On her way out, one of the sales associates stops to compliment her on her skin – which still, five years after life as an acne-riddled high school student, is a novelty – and he convinces her to let him do a mini-makeover on her. She sits on an uncomfortable stool with her shopping bags in a heap at her feet, trying to stay still as he does her eyes up all smoky and sultry and paints her lips a glossy nude shade.

When she undresses in her bedroom later than night and catches a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror above her dresser, she does a double take – of course, she'd looked in a hand mirror at the store, but the impact of it hadn't hit her because the strange lighting and loud music seemed to distract her. At home, with her things all around her, she is taken with the way she looks like herself and someone else all at the same time.

On a whim, she pulls out her laptop before bed and orders everything the makeup artist used on her.

She has spent over $400 since late afternoon, with plenty of new things to fill her closet and vanity, but she still feels a kind of hollow emptiness nagging at her. When she was little, she would have tried to fill it with Oreos or Sour Patch Kids by the handful. When she was a little older, it was bottles full of little orange capsules. Three or four ago, it was sickeningly sweet malt beverages in flavors like sour apple and wild grape that she bought by the six pack with her fake ID. Lately, it's been her nights with Jason – tonight, though, she can't stand the thought of anyone touching her at all.

So she changes into her pajamas – a navy silk baby doll tank and shorts set that she bought when she was gainfully employed – and slides into bed. She thinks about pulling the covers over her head, the way she used to when she was little kid, afraid of monsters under the bed.

Instead, she scoots out from under the sheets and grabs a teddy bear from her bookshelf – she banished all of her stuffed animals from her bed sometime last year, though she couldn't go so far as to get rid of them completely.

She brings the bear under the blankets with her, hugging him to her chest as she tries to coax herself to sleep.

* * *

It is starting to become a trend.

At the end of each day, she feels tired and cranky – maybe not as bad as her days peddling psycho-pharmaceuticals, but certainly not as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as she did when she first started at Greendale – like an older version of herself that she doesn't like very much.

She walks to her car just as dusk is deepening into night - she spent two and a half hours studying in the library because she knew that Abed and Rachel were starting their date at the apartment before they left for a showing of 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?' By now, though, they should be long gone, and all she wants is to go home and doze in a warm bath with the apartment perfectly still and silent all around her.

When she gets behind the wheel of her car, one of the few left in the parking lot, the engine won't turn over. She looks up and realizes that she's left the interior light on all day and now her battery is dead. For a minute, she just sits there, not quite able to accept how terrible her luck is.

But then she is storming out of the car, kicking at the tires with the pointy toe of her pump until the damn thing is scuffed and dirty.

She hears a car roll to a stop just behind her suddenly and curses herself for leaving her pepper spray keychain in her bag back in the car. She glances over her shoulder as discreetly as she can manage, and her luck holds because it's not some pervert or serial killer or other shady character wanting to do her harm.

It's Jeff, rolling down his window with a smirk.

"If I have to pick," he says dryly. "I think I'm going to have to put my money on the car."

She turns, lowering her head to study the dirty pavement at her feet. The universe has a cruel sense of humor because she can't think of a single reason that he should be at Greendale this late other than to torture her by having him catch her in a moment of pure childish petulance. She hears his car door open, his engine still running, and she looks up to find him walking toward her, his expression mostly amused but with a touch of genuine concern hovering somewhere near his eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she says, trying to sound confident. "My battery's dead. No big deal."

He bobs his head briskly and turns back to his car. When he gets back behind the wheel, she thinks that maybe he is just going to take her words at face value, but he pulls his car into the spot beside hers and goes around back to open the trunk. She can hear him moving stuff around, and though she isn't sure what he is doing, she wants to tell him to stop, that he should just head home to whatever it is he does at the end of a long day, that there is no need to stay on her account. He comes back around the side of the car, with red and black jumper cables in his hands and a determined look in his eyes.

"Pop your hood," he says, leaning into his car to open his own.

"Jeff, you really don't have to do this. I can just call Triple A and …"

But he clearly isn't listening to her – he is untangling the cables so he can stretch them between the cars, completely focused on the task at hand. So she gives in, getting back behind her wheel and leaving her door ajar as she opens her hood. He pushes it all the way up, and she watches him go back and forth the between the cars a couple of times to connect the batteries.

She doesn't think of Jeff as knowing how to do things like this - practical, mundane, manual tasks that she imagines he would think beneath him – so she is prepared to call Triple A in a minute or two when he gives up.

But he starts his car and yells to her to start hers and just like that, the engine roars to life. She stands, her hands clutching the top of the door as she watches him disconnect the cables and begin coiling them in his hands.

"You did it," she says.

If he detects the surprise in her voice, he ignores it.

"You've got to let it run for about a half hour," he tells her. "So the battery has time to recharge."

It only takes ten minutes for her to get home, so she's going to have to wait around this damn parking lot for twenty minutes. She sighs, slamming her door and sinking back against it in defeat. Jeff leans against his passenger side door, mimicking her stance. She isn't sure whether it makes her feel better or worse that he plans to wait with her.

"I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you're not having the greatest day," he says, smirking.

"When the highlight is an awkward conversation with the Dean about whether I think you dress to the right or the left, I think that's safe to say."

Jeff grimaces for a moment, but recovers quickly.

"So you're telling me the highlight wasn't me riding to the rescue like your knight in shining armor?"

He is obviously teasing, but her cheeks get a little warm anyway.

"Thank you," she says. "I don't think I said it. So thanks."

He shrugs, crossing his arms against his chest.

"No big deal. You'll just owe me now."

She frowns and narrows her eyes as she studies his expression.

"What does that mean exactly?"

"It means the next time I ask for a favor, you have to do it. No questions asked."

"I'm not sure I like the idea of being indebted to you like that."

"Relax, Annie," he laughs, pushing away from his car to stand beside her. "I'm not going to ask you to help me get rid of a body or anything. I'll probably just ask you to let me out of some dumb committee thing that I don't really want to do."

"Like supervising the blood drive."

He nods vigorously.

"Exactly. Like supervising the…" He trails off, cocking his head in thought. "Wait. Are there going to be sexy nurses at this blood drive?"

She laughs despite herself and smacks at his hip.

"Too late. You already used up your favor."

"Damn," he says, smiling all the while.

When her battery has charged for nearly 25 minutes, he makes her pull out first so he can trail her for a while, just to be certain that her car is in full working order. She tells him that it is unnecessary, but he insists. A normal person would probably be grateful, but she feels is annoyed, like she isn't capable of making it home safely on her own. She is way too sensitive these days for her own good.

And yet, when she parks in front of her building and she sees him drive past - because he's followed her all the way home and not just a few blocks - something prickly and hot seizes her chest and she has to read three chapters in her probability and statistics text book to make it go away.


	2. Chapter 2

It is something of a miracle, but for once, the table in the old study room is nearly full but quiet.

They are waiting for Shirley and Professor Hickey to arrive so they can start the committee meeting. As usual, Jeff is busy with his phone, but Britta is reading a psychology magazine and Abed has his ear buds in as he watches something on his laptop and Chang is consumed with –inexplicably – a Rubix Cube. Duncan is the only one who isn't actively doing anything, though he seems content to silently stare into space until the final members of the group show up.

Annie works on her to-do list for the evening – she has a paper to outline and flash cards to make, plus a load of laundry that needs washing, so she really needs to manage her time effectively.

She is penciling in a schedule for the night in her planner when her phone chimes with a new text. She sees that it's from Jason and scans the message quickly, which basically asks if she is free for a drink later tonight. It would probably be in her best interest to take him up on the offer, but there is just too much that she has to get done to really consider it.

"Who's Jason?"

She looks up in alarm, realizing too late that Professor Duncan has slid over and angled himself just enough to read her phone's display. Immediately, she snatches the phone away, stuffing it under her planner. She feels her cheeks get hot and hopes that they're not red.

"Do you even know the meaning of the word privacy?" she snaps.

"I thought it was a rather innocent question," he says, clearly amused, and she realizes that the rest of the table has abandoned their previous activities to look at her expectantly.

Even Jeff has put his phone down, giving her his undivided attention.

"He's just someone I used to work with," she says, figuring not answering will only make them push that much harder.

"That's not an entirely accurate description," Abed says, pulling the buds from his ears. He doesn't seem to notice her glare. "You dated him for a while."

Britta raises her eyebrows in interest.

"Oh, really? Do tell."

"We only went on two dates," Annie says. "But we didn't have anything in common, so that was it."

"But you still keep in touch with him?" Duncan prods.

She shrugs, trying to act casual.

"We get—"

"He still spends the night sometimes," Abed says.

She gasps, unable to stop herself, (she could kill Abed, seriously kill him – her criminology classes would probably help her hide the body and all the evidence so no one would be able to prove anything.) while Duncan and Chang laugh and Britta's expression turns from interest to confusion in a hurry. Annie can't bring herself to look at Jeff, but she can see in her peripheral vision that he still hasn't picked up his phone.

"Well, this meeting just got interesting," Duncan chuckles.

Britta scowls at him before turning back to Annie.

"I thought you said you're not dating him."

Of course, Britta gets stuck on that part because she probably can't imagine Annie doing anything as scandalous as sleeping with someone that she isn't technically dating. Annie takes a deep breath, sitting up as straight as possible in her chair. She will hold her head up high no matter how embarrassing this all is.

"I'm not," she sighs. "Can we please just drop it?"

"So it's a friends with benefits situation?" Chang asks. "I can dig it."

Abed shakes his head.

"I don't think they're really friends, though. They never really talk."

"So maybe it's an acquaintances with benefits situation then?" Duncan suggests.

"Would you all just shut up?" Annie grits out.

She is grateful that Shirley isn't here to hear all of this and wilt her with passive-aggressive judgments. The universe isn't completely cruel.

"I'm just trying to understand," Britta says kindly. "This guy is—"

"Look. He's just someone that I used to work with and still hang out with sometimes, okay? End of story. Let's just—"

"Hang out with naked," Chang snickers.

"Enough, Chang," Jeff says, and he uses his humorless, no-nonsense voice that is intimidating enough to make them all fall right in line.

She looks over at him for the first time since the conversation started, but he doesn't glance her way. And as is often the case, his expression is absolutely unreadable. Hickey comes strolling in then, followed almost instantaneously by Shirley, which allows Annie to quickly call the meeting to order so no one is tempted to say another word.

When they're leaving afterwards, Britta pulls her aside near the door. Jeff and Duncan are still at the table, making plans to have drinks or something, so she feels more than a little self-conscious.

"Don't let those jerks shame you into feeling bad," Britta says. "You're just as entitled to have your itch scratched as any guy, okay? But…" Her expression turns from fierce and determined to concerned in an instant. "I just want to make sure that you're really okay with the whole thing. I mean, you're not trying to recreate some romantic comedy scenario where you casually sleep with this guy, hoping he'll fall in love with you and –"

"I'm not a child, Britta," Annie practically growls. "I know what I'm doing."

"You always do," Jeff says breezily, as he brushes past her on his way out the door.

When she gets to he car, she spends nearly five minutes just sitting there, keys in hand, trying to interpret the tone of his voice, the look in his eyes – and she hates herself for it.

Like he has hundreds of other occasions, he leaves her spinning her wheels in the sand.

* * *

She gets in a fight with Abed one night and storms out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her with a flourish.

Maybe she is still angry about him blurting out personal details of her life to their friends without a second thought or maybe she is still hurt about him manipulating her in a fake online relationship. Or maybe she's just fed up that he always leaves his dirty dishes in the sink, is camped out in front of the TV every damn night of the week, or eats all her granola bars and pretzels without ever replacing them.

Whatever the reason, she reaches a breaking point and it is either yell her head off at him or lose her damn mind. She walks to the bar down the street from their apartment and orders a vodka tonic because that's a serious, grown-up drink and she is experiencing serious, grown-up angst.

When she texts Jeff and asks him if he's free, though, she isn't really drunk.

Tipsy may be an accurate description, but she is confident that she could walk a straight line to the bathroom and her index finger could easily find the tip of her nose if necessary.

She could have asked Britta, who is much happier to play the role of sounding board or sympathetic shoulder than Jeff has ever been, but she knows that he will be straight with her, with no psycho-babble mumbo jumbo about her feelings or subconscious desires, and right now, she needs someone to speak to her plainly.

Of course, it may also come down to the simple fact that she wants to see him. Since the other afternoon before the committee meeting, things have felt weird between them, strained almost. It is definitely ridiculous because neither of them has done anything to other, so there is no reason that they should feel uncomfortable around one another. There is a part of her, however small, that wonders if he is in the midst of one of jealousy spells – though, of course, he has never owned up to being jealous over her at all and has always done his best to convince her that it's all in her head anyway.

That may be what she hates most about him – the way that he can make her doubt her own head, heart.

By the time that he shows up, she has downed two and a half vodka tonics, and either the bartender has seriously started watering down the drinks or she is drunk enough that she can't even taste the alcohol anymore because each sip is just full of lime-y goodness.

"Don't tell me," Jeff says, as he settles himself on the stool beside her. "Hickey gave you another A-. When will that man learn not to mess with Annie Edison?"

He signals to the bartender, who comes over and takes his order for a beer.

"This doesn't have anything to do with school," she tells him, once he's had a chance to sip from his bottle.

"No? Why else would you look like the world's about to end then?"

She sighs, a low, ragged sound that is nearly lost among the barroom chatter and piped in classic rock. Jeff must hear it, though, because he leans in a little closer. His jaw is clenched – actually every muscle in his body seems tightly coiled, like he is ready to spring into action at a moment's notice.

"Did some guy—"

"No," she answers automatically, not even sure what he is about to ask. "It's nothing like that either."

He relaxes, scratching at the corner of the label on his beer with his thumb.

"What is it then?"

"I don't know if I can live with Abed anymore," she practically whispers.

It is the first time that she's said the words out loud, despite the fact that the thought has been rattling around in her head for weeks now. She has felt terrible just feeling that way; now she feels worse for admitting it.

"What?" Jeff says, clearly confused. "Why?"

"I know I'm probably not the easiest person to live with," she admits. "I'm kind of rigid and inflexible and –"

"Oh, but only in the best possible way," he teases.

When she looks over at him, he is shooting her one of those sweet, genuine smiles that always warms her blood and puts dangerous ideas in her head. She tilts her glass, staring at the wilted lime at the bottom like maybe it has answers for her.

"Abed is the same way. Worse even. Don't get me wrong. I love him to death, but he has to have everything his way, all the time, and he can be seriously manipulative when he wants to be. It's a little scary actually."

Jeff bobs his head slowly.

"I can believe that."

"It was okay when we had Troy to act as a buffer, but without him… I don't know. It's starting to drive me crazy. To the point where I'm seriously worried that there's going to be permanent damage done to our friendship. Irrevocable damage."

She turns sharply when she hears Jeff chuckle.

"You're three sheets to the wind and still using SAT words. You're one of a kind, Annie."

She might be pouting, but her face feels almost numb at the moment so she can't be sure.

"I'm serious, Jeff."

He takes another sip of his beer and shrugs.

"Why don't you guys just get another roommate? Someone to take Troy's place as the apartment buffer?"

She lifts her shoulders helplessly.

"I really don't want to live with a stranger."

He goes back to picking at the corner of his beer's label, nodding thoughtfully.

"Well, it sounds like you've got your mind made up then."

"Not really," she confesses. "I can't really afford a decent place on my own… and I worry about how Abed will react if I tell him I'm moving out. He just went through that whole lava-clone thing when Troy left. I don't want to send him off on another psychotic break."

Jeff laughs humorlessly and nudges her arm with his elbow.

"Look, I love Abed as much as anybody. But you have to do what's right for you. You can't always put someone else's feelings ahead of your own."

She shakes her head, though she knows that he is probably right. At a certain point, it isn't even about being selfish. It is about self-preservation. Jeff understands that better than most people – and she almost admires his ability to hurdle the obstacles in his path without being bogged down by feelings like guilt, responsibility or even shame.

She certainly isn't capable of that.

"It's not that simple."

"Why?" he asks gently.

She can feel his eyes on her, soft and heavy at the same time, but she can't bring herself to look his way.

"Because if I was the one having such a hard time with Troy leaving," she says. "I wouldn't want Abed to abandon me. So I can't do it to him."

Jeff huffs out a sound that is a cross between a sigh and a laugh.

"Annie," he whispers. "You're something else, you know that?"

His voice is tinged with something that sounds a lot like awe, and she knows that no man has ever spoken to her in quite that way before – not her father, who thinks checks on her birthday and at the holidays fulfill his obligations to her; not her high school boyfriend, who was always recommending mud masks and toners that might help with her breakouts; not Vaughn, who specialized in sweet musical interludes, not actual conversations; not Troy or Abed, who spent more than two years trying to make her tastes in movies, TV, music and food mirror their own exactly; not the handful of guys that she's gone on dates with over the past year, who all opened their mouths to spew what sounded like generic white noise; and not Jason, who hardly speaks to her at all.

Without really knowing why she is doing it, she reaches out and curls her hand around Jeff's wrist, her thumb pressing against the soft skin on the inside where his pulse thumps strongly. When she glances up at him, his expression is almost pained, like he can't bear the weight of her finger against his arm.

"Annie," he mutters, almost warningly.

That's all it takes for the moment to break, falling apart like a flimsy soap bubble. She feels scolded, chastised, so she lessens the pressure of her thumb against his skin.

She doesn't move her hand away, though.

"Every time I want to hang out with you, it's not because I'm in love with you or want to have sex with you, you know," she says. "I just … I like you, Jeff. I like being with you."

He practically slumps on his bar stool, lowering his head to study the sticky bar top.

"I know that. I don't … Fuck, Annie. I'm sorry."

She doesn't know what exactly he is apologizing for and feels foolish for even broaching the subject that always sends them careening off into awkwardness and distance. Her hand falls away from his wrist, and she clears her throat, trying to steady herself.

"I need you to be my friend right now," she says. "I need you tell me what I should do."

He blows out a slow breath and taps his hand against the bar, like he is trying desperately to come up with the right answer.

"Tell Abed how you feel. Just be honest and maybe you guys can work something out."

She laughs, and on a whim, signals the bartender for another drink.

"That sounds so simple."

"It probably won't be," Jeff says. "Friendship isn't easy. It's difficult and messy and a pain in your ass most of the time."

She turns on her stool to face him directly and rests her elbow on the bar so she can support her suddenly heavy head with her hand.

"But it's worth it?"

He shrugs and throws back the rest of his beer in one deep gulp.

"Sometimes. With you and Abed, sure."

She watches as he wipes at his mouth with his hand.

"And with us?"

His head practically jerks in her direction, and he looks confused, caught off-guard and a little annoyed.

"Yeah," he says. "Of course."

"Then why did we barely see each other last year? Why did we barely talk?"

She can't tell if his face softens or hardens at her question – maybe she is really drunk now and her sense of judgment, perspective is all off. Or maybe his eyes are soft and his frown is hard; she can't be sure.

"It was a really crappy year," he tells her, as if that is the only explanation necessary.

He is right, of course. It was a terrible year, and maybe that is reason enough for the distance that seemed to grow between all of them. She isn't entirely satisfied with that, though. But she recognizes that she is too drunk to have a serious conversation about it, so she focuses on her fresh vodka tonic instead. Jeff orders another beer and they finish their drinks in silence, which isn't as uncomfortable as she might have imagined.

He insists on walking her home afterward because it's nearly midnight and the streets are mostly quiet. She isn't so drunk that she's stumbling, but she slips her arm through his and uses him for balance anyway.

* * *

It's hardly a surprise that she and Shirley get stuck decorating the cafeteria for Greendale's open house.

No one would want the responsibility under the best of circumstances, but the fact that it has to be done on a Friday evening because the open house starts bright and early Saturday morning makes it an even less appealing task. Abed immediately excuses himself because he has plans with Rachel and Britta has to work a shift at the bar so she's in the clear. Jeff has a date that he claims he can't break because he's already rescheduled on the poor woman (his words) once, and Professor Hickey cryptically mentions a project that demands his attention. Duncan doesn't bother with an excuse, and Chang actually offers to help but Annie manages to convince him that he more than did his part last week when he got rid of the hornet's nest outside the cafeteria's main entrance.

She has no real plans herself besides doing a little reading for school and catching up on "Castle." She is half expecting to be stuck working all alone, actually, so when Shirley says she'll help out, Annie is grateful.

It isn't until they're halfway done moving the tables and chairs out of the center of the cafeteria that it occurs to her why Shirley is free.

Her kids aren't living with her at the moment.

Annie feels awful that she didn't realize earlier, hasn't thought of it for most of the semester, and wonders if she should say something about it. Probably not, she thinks. It's likely not Shirley's favorite topic and she has no interest in making her friends talk about things that they upset them. She doubles her focus on lugging a particularly heavy table to the side of the room, grunting with the effort.

"Relax, sweetie," Shirley chuckles. "We don't get extra credit for speed."

Annie smiles, pushing the hair out of her eyes.

"I guess I just want to get it over it."

Shirley bobs her head and lifts two chairs under her arms to carry them to where Annie stands.

"You know, we've been so busy with all this committee stuff that we haven't really had much time to just talk, have we? How are all your CSI/Law-and-Order classes going?"

"Good," Annie says. "It's good to feel a real sense of purpose when you're studying something, you know? I just wish I hadn't been too afraid to stick with it a year ago. I could be in graduate school now… or working in the field. It's like I've taken a million steps backward. For no good reason."

"Oh, honey, that's silly," Shirley declares. "Better late than never. I mean, look at me. I'm old enough to be your … wiser, older sister … and I'm trying to get my life together for what feels like the hundredth time. I think it doesn't really matter how long it takes. It just matters that you get it done."

Annie sinks into one of the chairs that Shirley's brought over and shakes her head.

"I'm just so far off the schedule that I had for myself in high school. Actually, it's not even the same schedule anymore. I feel like I screwed up once, a long time ago, and I'm never going to be able to get back on track."

Shirley clucks disapprovingly and pulls a chair up beside her, patting her hand.

"You're so young, Annie. You've got all the time in the world to figure things out."

It is no surprise that Shirley still sees her as a child – it's likely the motherly instinct in her and isn't meant to be insulting. But every time that someone views her that way, it just makes her angry - as if the time that she's wasted doesn't matter as much because she might have a few more years ahead of her.

But she knows that it isn't worth starting a fight over.

"It doesn't always feel that way," she says.

Shirley bumps her shoulder against Annie's and smiles gamely – for a moment, Annie isn't sure who she is trying to convince with this false cheer.

"Sweetheart, listen. It's easy to look at life not turning out the way you want or expect as a failure. But really, it's an opportunity to chart a new course for yourself. To really prove what you're capable of." She shrugs. "And you know, God never gives us more than we can handle so…"

For a moment, they just sit there in silence, her words practically echoing in the empty cafeteria. Then Shirley claps her hand and insists they get back to work. It takes another hour before they really get the place in shape, but it's not even nine yet so the entire evening isn't lost. They reward themselves with greasy pub food at a sports bar down the street from campus where everyone is caught up in a hockey or basketball game, maybe both.

Before they head home, Shirley takes out her phone and shows Annie photos of the boys at their most recent karate tournament. She is happy and bright-eyed as she explains each photo, and Annie thinks that maybe she is right.

It doesn't matter how long it takes, as long as things come together eventually.

* * *

The Dean's assistant is at lunch and he claims that he is expecting a very important call, so he insists that Annie man the phone instead of taking care of her usual filing duties in the storeroom.

She actually doesn't mind, because despite the Dean's expectations, the phone hasn't rung once, which gives her more than enough time to read ahead in her criminology text book and outline as she goes.

When Jeff breezes in, she's already finished an entire chapter and is feeling pretty accomplished - that's probably why she isn't rattled by his unexpected appearance. He, on the other hand, does a double take when he sees her behind the desk instead of the usual white-haired secretary.

It is probably her imagination – she knows that is what he would tell her if she dared bring it up – but the tension between them only seems to have deepened since their night at the bar a couple of weeks ago. She hasn't even told him that she took his advice and was honest with Abed about how she felt and that things have gotten – at least a little – better. She isn't sure if Jeff's been avoiding her or she's been avoiding him. All she knows is that something is off.

"Hey," he says, offering her one of his fake smiles. "Wasn't expecting to see you here."

"Rhonda's at lunch, so I'm filling in."

He bobs his head and his smile deepens a bit, so she knows that he is about to charm her.

Or try to anyway.

"Well, then, maybe you'll do me a favor. Can you post a note outside my two o'clock class that it's cancelled?"

She eyes him warily.

"Why are you cancelling your class?"

He laughs, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Why do you sound so suspicious?" he counters.

Her 'Because I know you' expression must translate exactly because he looks a little defensive.

"For your information," he says haughtily. "I have a doctor's appointment."

She knows immediately that he is telling the truth, so she segues from suspicion to concern in less than a second.

"Are you sick?"

She studies his face, which is tan and actually kind of glowing - he certainly looks healthy enough, she thinks.

"No. I'm fine. It's just …" He leans over the desk, lowering his voice. "It's an appointment with my dermatologist. He gets booked up faster than a Kardashian marriage and they had a last minute cancellation so if I don't want to wait until Christmas…"

"So you're blowing off class so you can get microdermabrasion or a chemical peel?"

He smiles again, but this time, it is the real deal, making it all the way up to his eyes.

"How do you know I'm not getting a skin cancer screening?"

She narrows her eyes dubiously, and he drops his hands to his hips.

"Not all of us have pristine porcelain skin that looks as if it hasn't seen a ray of sun a day in its life, Annie."

She touches her cheek self-consciously, where she knows that the skin is blindingly pale.

"I tried self-tanner once," she finds herself saying for no reason. "I looked like a carrot."

"Hey, I didn't mean it as an insult," he says. "You pull off the whole Snow White thing pretty spectacularly."

She smiles and he smiles back and time seems to do that slow, meandering thing it does when he looks at her in just the right way. But then she remembers that they're in the middle of the Dean's office and she lowers her head, tucking her hair behind her ear just for something to do.

"I'll put up a note for you," she says begrudgingly.

"You're a lifesaver, Annie. I guess I owe you now."

He doesn't seem to realize how dangerous it is to make that declaration to her – she is either going to make him help with the Earth Day Dance or cleaning out parking field D - but he breezes out just like he came in, entirely carefree.

Later that night, she is indulging in a bubble bath, the tiara from Pierce perched ridiculously on her head to make the whole thing even more special, when her phone buzzes with a text message. When she sees that it's from Jeff, she figures that it's just another thank you.

But he surprises her.

_You can stop worrying, _it says._ It was just a mole. _

She finds herself smiling, as the bubbles cool and wither around her.


	3. Chapter 3

She is a little nervous when she curls her hand into a fist to knock on Professor Hickey's office door.

It may be his appointed office hours, so she isn't really imposing but he isn't exactly the most accommodating person that she knows. Though they may spend more time together than the average professor and student, it hasn't really made her feel any more comfortable around him. He is gruff and intimidating and just kind of a grouch, and while she knows that there is probably more lurking beneath his grumpy exterior, she doesn't particularly enjoy spending time him.

He also shares an office with Jeff, and for some reason, she doesn't really want to talk to Hickey with him in the room - which is ridiculous, of course, because she is only there to discuss an idea for her final project, not anything personal or embarrassing. But she can imagine Jeff interrupting, offering his two cents, even intervening on her behalf, and she isn't in the mood for that right now.

She knocks anyway, though, because she knows that it is silly to be anxious over this kind of stuff and she is a serious student with legitimate business to discuss with her professor.

As expected, Hickey doesn't exactly greet her warmly.

"What?" he demands when she pokes her head inside. He has a metal thermos, with steam rising from its opening, and a newspaper pulled apart in sections in front of him, so it doesn't seem like he is doing any particularly important. But he sighs and slumps in his seat like he is seriously put upon.

"Is this a bad time?" she asks brightly, trying to channel her most cheerful self.

"That depends. Are you here to get me to scrub the algae out of the swimming pool or separate the knot of jump ropes in the gym storage room?"

"No," she answers automatically. "This isn't official committee business."

He shrugs.

"Then I guess it's not the worst time. But make it quick - there's a crossword puzzle calling my name."

It may not be the most welcoming reception, but coming from Hickey, she'll take it.

"I just wanted to run an idea by you. For my final project."

He laughs and shakes his head.

"You know it's not due for another five weeks, right? I doubt the rest of the class has even read the syllabus in its entirety yet."

She smiles and lifts a shoulder almost apologetically.

"I hate waiting until the last minute."

"Yeah," he says, with a bob of his head. "I've noticed that about you." He pushes the rickety wooden chair beside his desk in her direction with his foot. "So what's your big idea?"

She takes the offered seat and pulls the folder with her notes out of her bag. In general, her idea isn't the most original – examining an old case and exploring the ways in which modern criminology and forensics might have helped to solve it is something that they've done several times over the semester – but instead of going with a really famous unsolved case, like Jack the Ripper, the Black Dahlia, or the Zodiac Killings, subjects that Hickey has probably read student papers every year for the past 15 years, she picks the Original Night Stalker because it's one that didn't even make their text book, that she only knows about because of an episode of Cold Case Files, so she should score some points for originality.

Hickey looks mostly bored while she is speaking, but that doesn't deter her because she knows that it's a good topic, and when she's done, the corner of his mouth lifts up in an almost smile, like he is somewhat impressed.

"That's not half bad," he says. "Actually, it's pretty good. So I probably won't hate reading it."

She smiles.

"Thanks. I'm really excited to get started on it." She pauses, tilting her head thoughtfully. "That sounds bad, I know. It's not like I'm excited to read about rape and murder. It's just that it's a fascinating case and you wonder how it could go unsolved all these years and what might—"

"Enough," Hickey says brusquely. "I get it."

She nods, hurrying to shove her folder back into her bag so she can get out of here before she makes a fool out of herself. At some point, while she's busy rearranging things in her bag, she feels Hickey's eyes on her. She doesn't know if she should look up and meet his gaze or just ignore it.

Curiosity gets the better of her, though, and she straightens up to find him watching her with an almost bemused expression.

"I didn't like you when we first met," he tells her bluntly. "Because you were one of those annoying know-it-all, go-getter types."

She frowns, caught a little off-guard.

"Yeah, well, I wasn't exactly crazy about you either."

"But now, I know you a little better, and I gotta say, I really don't understand what you're doing here." He pauses, shaking his head. "You know you're too good for this place, right? And you're not just here – you're pretty much single-handedly running a committee to keep this place afloat. It's nuts."

A nervous laugh bubbles out of her because of all the things that she might have expected Hickey to say, this certainly was not one of them.

When she was younger, she probably felt the same way. Back then, she – like Jeff - thought of herself as stuck at Greendale, as if she had been banished there to pay for all the mistakes that she'd made. She spent a lot of time trying to figure a way to get out. Now, it's different because she realizes that it is choice, that life is full of nothing but choices and she makes them every day through the things that she does and the things that she doesn't do. She can't pretend any more that she's just been swept along by something bigger than herself, held in place by the fates or the whims of the universe.

She is where she belongs because it's where she chooses to be.

It's as simple as that.

"My friends are here," she tells Hickey, as if she has to justify herself. "Actually, they're more like my family than my actual family so…"

He rolls his eyes.

"You're all a bunch of crazies. I guess that's why you get along."

Sometimes, she actually has to wonder if they really do get along or if it's just shared history that keeps them together at this point. No, she tells herself. There is always affection there, even when she dislikes them, even when they drive her up the wall. Because that's what all relationships are like – made up of shades of gray, not strictly black and white.

Messy and difficult, just like Jeff told her that night in the bar after her fight with Abed. But worth it too.

"You seem to fit in with us pretty well," she says, with a smile. "On the committee, I mean."

Hickey crosses his arms over his chest and glares at her.

"Then clearly, I'm not making my disdain obvious enough."

She laughs softly, shaking her head. For some reason, she finds herself glancing across the room then, toward Jeff's empty desk. His jacket is draped carefully over the chair and there is an open can of Coke Zero and a protein bar in a shiny purple foil wrapper sitting beside it. There is also a pile of three or four books in the right corner, and she narrows her eyes to try to read the titles from a distance to see if they actually have to do with his classes or if he's just rereading Charles Bukowski again.

"He has a class now," Hickey says, and she flushes, realizing that he's caught her staring at Jeff's desk. "He should be back in about 20 minutes. 30 if he stops for one of those stupid, fancy coffee drinks that cost an arm and a leg. You can wait if you want."

She shakes her head and stands abruptly, hauling her bag onto her shoulder.

"Oh, no. I'm not … I was just…"

Hickey chuckles humorlessly.

"You two even sound alike."

She has no idea what he means, and she isn't about to ask. Instead, she thanks him for his time and heads for the door.

"So I shouldn't tell Winger you were looking for him, huh?" Hickey calls after her.

It is easy to ignore him.

* * *

Someone on the Save Greendale Committee has had a bad day – or maybe everyone has.

They are all tense, sulky, on edge, so someone suggests that they head to a bar and get well and completely hammered.

Jeff becoming a faculty member has blurred the lines between student and professor for the group, not that they were ever clearly defined at Greendale in the first place. But now they find themselves hanging out with Duncan and Chang on a fairly regular basis. Hickey usually doesn't stick around any longer than his obligation to the committee requires, and Annie is grateful for that because he is actually teaching a class that she is in and it would be too strange to drink beer or sing karaoke with him.

She has other plans tonight, though, so it doesn't really matter whether Hickey tags along or not. She is supposed to meet Jason - it's been almost two months since she last saw him, since she last had sex, and maybe that's why she has been feeling so tense lately, right on the precipice of something dark and dangerous.

So while the group heads off to get drunk, she goes home to change. She's already slipped into her little black dress and strappy heels, and is doing up her eyes all smoky and sultry like the makeup artist from Sephora did when Jason texts to – very apologetically – cancel on her.

The strange thing is that she isn't really surprised. It's almost as if she knew that it wouldn't work out tonight, and she is disappointed, not because she wants to see Jason specifically, but because she just feels lonely. And she knows that it's wrong, that she is just using him (it doesn't even matter that he is using her too), so it only makes her feel guilty, greedy, and even more alone.

She could text Abed or Britta and find out where they are so she can join them, but it seems like too much of an effort at the moment. Instead, she goes into the kitchen in her dress and heels and pours herself a glass of wine. It's the cheap kind that comes in a box, but it warms her all the same.

Maybe she'll watch a movie, one that she chooses herself, without checking to see if it meets Abed's standards. She's been wanting to watch 'Breakfast At Tiffany's again, ever since those chocolate commercials with Audrey Hepburn singing 'Moon River' have popped up. She remembers seeing it for the first time with her grandmother when she was just 12 years old, how she imagined that she would grow up to be as glamorous as Holly Golightly, move to Denver (in her young mind, it would be just as cosmopolitan as New York and close enough that she could still see her grandmother on weekends) and wear fabulous, elegant dresses, kiss handsome strangers, and break hearts everywhere she went.

Of course, she was so young that all she really saw was the romance of Holly's life. The sadness escaped her back then.

She is flipping through her DVDs to find the right one when there is a commotion in the hallway just outside the apartment. The couple who lives at the end of the hall is known for making big scenes – sometimes knock-down, drag-out fights that have Annie ready to dial 9-1-1 and other times moaning, thumping PDAs that force Annie throw in her ear buds and turn up Beyoncé really, really loud – so she tilts her head, trying to figure out what their deal is this time.

But the apartment door swings open then, and Abed spills in, Britta draped over his back in a sort of a piggyback position, the toes of her boots dragging along the floor. Duncan and Jeff shuffle in behind them, Chang propped up between them like he is nothing but dead weight.

They are all, to varying degrees, quite obviously drunk.

"What are you guys doing here?" she asks.

Britta raises a finger and opens her mouth to speak, but dissolves into a fit of laughter so hard that she sends Abed stumbling into the wall. She slides to the floor in a heap.

"Chang got us thrown out of the bar," Duncan says. "By starting a fight with a guy three times his height and five times his weight, whose mother and father were very likely first cousins."

"He was askin' for it," Chang slurs.

"Abed assured us that you have a vast selection of spirits," Duncan continues, ignoring Chang completely. "And we were within walking distance so naturally…"

He grins and waves his hand with a flourish. Annie looks over at Abed, who, while tipsy, isn't quite as far gone as the rest of them seem to be. He just shrugs.

"We have all the stuff that Troy got from Pierce's house," he says. "I don't think he expects it to still be here when he gets back."

Annie nods, smiling wanly. Truth be told, she finds the idea of Duncan and Chang inside her apartment unsettling – particularly when the former has no qualms about rooting around in their stuff, flinging open kitchen cabinets in search of something or another. Maybe, though, it is better not to be alone. Maybe misery really does love company.

"You have margarita mix," Duncan calls happily through the kitchen cutout. "Now where's the blender?"

She helps him find it and all the other fixings for margaritas, and supervises as he mixes up a batch. He is sloshing tequila and lime green mix all over the counter, dusting the floor with a layer of crunchy salt, and she has to curl her hands into fists to stop herself from cleaning up on the spot.

Later, she tells herself. She'll worry about it later.

Duncan gives her the first margarita from the batch in one of her Sleeping Beauty juice glasses and she takes it over to the futon. She suspects that Duncan didn't pay much attention to the instructions on the bottle because her first sip tastes almost like straight tequila, burning her throat and chest in a way that isn't entirely unpleasant. She crosses one leg over the other and watches her shoe dangle from her toes. She is all dressed up with no place to go, but at least she's with her friends – even if they're all sloppy drunk and barely coherent.

Without warning, Jeff collapses onto the futon beside her, splashing a little of the amber liquid in his half-filled glass on his wrist. The clumsy way that he licks it away and weary look in his eyes makes it clear that he has been hitting the sauce for a while, and she wonders if there is something in particular bothering him or if he's just feeling the same general malaise that she is.

"So…" he says, crossing his leg in the opposite direction as hers so his ridiculously large boot rests precariously above her tiny shoe. "Your plans with … what's his name? James? Josh? They fell through?"

"Jason," she corrects for no real reason. "Yes. His ex-girlfriend is in town for a layover and I guess she rates a little higher than I do."

He bobs his head slowly, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.

"You don't seem that upset."

She shrugs lazily.

"It's not a big deal. You know better than anyone how these things go - it's not like we owe each other anything or there are any feelings involved."

Part of her wants to shock him, show him how mature and adult she can be. Another part of her just wants to make him jealous, let him know how sexually liberated she is these days so he has a little something to think about tonight when he's alone in bed.

But he just sips from his glass and nudges her elbow.

"Maybe you'll still get lucky tonight," he jokes. "Look at all the eligible bachelors in this room."

He gestures across the room where Chang and Duncan have lined up a series of glasses to see who can chug them the fastest and Abed is attempting to play the harmonica. She looks back at Jeff with a frown, refusing to dwell on the fact that he didn't include himself as someone who might help change her luck.

"Can I be honest with you for a minute?" he says, his voice a little softer and more serious. He doesn't wait for her to respond before charging ahead. "The whole thing with you and this guy, it seems really weird to me."

She sits up straight, bristling instantly.

"I would point out for the 100th time that I'm not a child anymore, but no one seems to hear me so what's the point?" she grits out. "But I'm an adult, Jeff. I'm well aware that you don't have to be head over heels for a guy to have sex with him. I'm just not like you – I don't want to go trolling around bars, looking for a different guy each week. This is easier."

He blinks at her, looking a little bleary-eyed.

"No, that's not… I just think it's weird. That this guy doesn't want more."

"Why is that weird? Wouldn't most guys jump at the chance for no-strings attached sex? You do it all the time."

He is quiet for a long, torturous moment, and she begins to wonder if maybe he's fallen asleep. But when she glances over at him, he is staring back with a look so intent and intense that she gets an uncomfortably tight, burning sensation in her chest that the tequila can't compete with.

"Not with you," he finally says.

A shaky breath stutters out of her almost against her will, but she refuses to react otherwise, staying as still as possible. She is angry at Jason all of a sudden – if he hadn't cancelled on her, she wouldn't be here, she wouldn't be having this awkward conversation with Jeff. He shifts next to her, resting his elbow on the top of the futon behind her head and leaning in a little closer.

"You're just not the kind of girl who-"

"I'm not a girl," she snaps, surprising herself with just how angry she is. "I understand that sex doesn't equal love, Jeff. In fact, love, or anything close to it, just makes everything so much more difficult**.**"

The corner of his mouth quirks up, making him look almost amused.

"When did you become so cynical?" he asks. "Jaded?"

"I'm not," she insists. "Jason isn't the right guy for me, but that doesn't mean I have to be celibate until I find someone who is. And I still have hope that there's a guy out there who I'll actually like spending time with and who'll be honest with me and not jerk me around and …"

She stops herself from saying anything else, especially when she sees the entertained way Jeff is smiling at her.

"Who'll take you to Disneyland?" he teases.

She glares at him, eyes narrowed, and that seems to sober him up a little. He clears his throat and shakes his head.

"I don't really know if there's a guy like that out there, Annie."

"You are welcome to wallow in your cynicism – men are evil monsters, only after sex, blah blah blah," she says, pushing herself up. "But I'm not in the mood to hear it so…"

His hand curls around her elbow, and he gently tugs her back down.

"I didn't mean it like that," he whispers. "I just meant, you're special, Annie. I can't imagine there's a guy out there who could really deserve you."

That has always been part of their problem, she thinks. He has her up on some ridiculous pedestal, protected by glass like she is some breakable china doll.

She is sick of it.

"That's so stupid," she tells him. "How could you possibly determine who deserves who? We both know I'm far from perfect, so I don't need a perfect guy. All I want is someone who is willing to try."

Jeff bobs his head.

"You deserve at least that much."

She nods too, and then she feels his thumb rubbing almost imperceptibly against the back of her head. He slides even closer on the futon, so his warm thigh is pressed against hers, and he is looking at her mouth and she has the sudden, startling realization that he is going to kiss her. She wants him to do it with an intensity that terrifies her and leaves her shaking just a bit, but she also knows that it is probably a mistake to do it here, like this. He licks at his lower lip as he leans in, and she hates herself for what she's about to do because every cell in her body wants her tongue to blaze the same path.

Still, she reaches up and presses a hand to his chest to push him back.

"Jeff," she whispers regretfully. "I don't think—"

"I'm sorry," he mutters, and immediately shifts away, as far from her as he can get without falling off the futon. "I've been drinking and I'm not …"

She drains the rest of her tequila-heavy margarita, wondering how long politeness dictates that she sit here before she heads to the kitchen for another drink. She feels awful and awkward and exhausted, and she wants to crawl in bed and pull the blankets over head for the entire weekend.

But Jeff makes it easy on her.

He shoots her a tight smile and holds up his empty glass.

"I'm gonna go…"

He points toward the kitchen, heaving himself off the futon and across the room in what seems like two steps.

She lets him walk away without saying a word.

* * *

A week of committee meetings later, and Jeff is still studiously avoiding her gaze, speaking to her only when absolutely necessary.

As he has a knack for doing, he makes her feels as if she's done something wrong, like she should feel foolish or guilty or ashamed, and she hates him for it.

She is tempted to put him in charge of the worst of the committee's tasks for the week – like picking all the broken shards of glass from the track or removing the poison oak from the courtyard behind the library. But that would be an abuse of power, and she has principles, values that she won't compromise just to get a little revenge on someone who probably feels as badly as she does about what happened – or what didn't happen.

Sometimes, she thinks that it would be better if they hadn't kissed before.

If they'd never kissed, then now, if it happened, they could chalk it up to satisfying a longstanding curiosity. They could use the excuse to ease their way into it, without thinking about what it means and what to do next. It would be simple.

But because they've kissed and have spent the last four years not kissing, it has become this thing so loaded with meaning and significance that it can't be done without consequences. They can't just kiss to test the waters and see what happens. They are so far beyond that now that she is starting to wonder if they missed their moment, if it's too late for whatever it is between them to ever really see the light of day.

It might help if they could come to definitive conclusion about whatever it is between them in the first place.

Most days, she is fairly certain that she isn't in love with him.

She can't be – because she is old enough to understand that for all the little quirks of his personality that she understands like second nature, for all the little trivial details of his life that she could recite from memory alone, she doesn't know him well enough for that.

Or maybe, more precisely, she doesn't know him well enough in the right ways to really be in love with him.

But she is also old enough to realize that she feels something for him that she has never felt for anyone else, and it doesn't seem to go way if she ignores it or ignores him or he ignores her or they barely see each other for an entire year.

He coughs just as the meeting wraps up, and even that seems to jolt something in inside her.

She is so distracted while she packs up her belongings that her bag skitters to the ground and all its contents, her car keys, pens, notepad, wallet, breath mints, hand sanitizer, tampons, lipstick, brush and compact, scatter on the battered carpeting at her feet. She curses under her breath, crouching to retrieve all the stupid crap that she carries with her on a daily basis.

And then, Jeff is kneeling beside her, helping gather her things, and she tries not to flinch away from him, the way his shoulder brushes against hers as he stretches to corral a wayward pen.

"Thanks," she mumbles, barely looking him in the eye.

She feels rather than sees him shrug.

"You know me. I can't resist a damsel in distress."

It is pretty clumsy as far as apologies go, but she knows what he is trying to say and she is willing to meet him halfway. They finish collecting her things and awkwardly get to their feet, the silence stretching around them oppressively. She shifts her bag higher on her shoulder and straightens her back.

"Jeff, maybe we should -"

"Annie. It's kind of late. Let's not get into a whole thing, okay?"

She frowns, lowering her head so her hair hides her face. He exhales heavily, and she sees his feet shift closer to her. When he rests his hand on her shoulder, she can't help but look up at him, his expression soft and almost sad.

"I'm sorry," he practically whispers.

She nods, though she tilts her head back slightly in a stubborn effort to keep any renegade tears from slipping free.

"I just want us to be okay," she tells him. "Are we going to be okay?"

He smiles, his soft, tender, just-for-her smile, and bobs his head.

"Yeah. We'll be okay."

When he says it, she actually believes it.


	4. Chapter 4

She puts it off as long as she can, but when the pain gets so annoying that she can't ignore it, she makes an appointment to get her wisdom teeth removed.

She's lucky in that she only has two to take out, but the cost of the procedure still clears out nearly an eighth of her savings account. The oral surgeon is putting her under too, so she needs someone to take and bring her home – because she is still estranged from her family and doesn't have a significant other, she has to rely on her friends to pick up the slack.

Abed drives her to the appointment, but he has a class so he can only stay for a half hour. Shirley relieves him then, meeting Annie when she comes out of the procedure, mouth still stuffed with cotton and head still foggy with the anesthesia. Shirley takes her home, doles out her pain medication, and tucks her into bed with her favorite teddy bear under her arm. When Annie wakes a few hours later, Britta is at the apartment, with chocolate pudding and ice packs for Annie's cheeks. She crawls into bed beside Annie and they watch "Brave" on Annie's laptop – until it's time for more pain meds and Annie promptly falls asleep again.

When she wakes next, it's dark outside and the small lamp on her bedside table is on. Jeff is sitting beside her bed in her uncomfortable desk chair, holding a large pink plastic cup, and the sight is so strange that she rubs at her eyes as she sits up against her pillows, convinced that she is either still asleep or hallucinating from the pain meds.

"Sleeping Beauty awakens," he says, with a smile. "Good thing too. This thing is melting fast."

He hands her the cup and it's cold against her skin. She looks at it in confusion.

"Strawberry milkshake," he explains. "Strawberry's your favorite, right?"

She bobs her head, running her finger along the plastic cover. There is no straw so she just holds the cup stupidly.

"You can't use a straw," he tells her, giving her a plastic spoon. "It could dislodge your blood clots or give you dry socket or something else really terrible. That's what Shirley told me anyway."

She nods again, hating how heavy her head feels. It even makes it difficult for her to get the lid off the cup, and Jeff has to reach out and do it for her. She is hungrier than she realized and she really wants something more than a shake, something substantial like a cheeseburger and fries, but strawberry is her favorite and it is a really good shake so she shouldn't complain.

She has eaten several spoonfuls before it hits her that she hasn't said a single word to Jeff since she woke up, which is definitely rude and a little weird.

"Thank you," she says, wiping at her mouth. "This is really good and I appreciate …"

She trails off when she finally gets a good look at him. He is wearing a jacket and tie with one of his pairs of designer jeans, looking like he stepped off the cover of GQ. She smoothes her sleep-matted hair self-consciously and straightens her tank top.

"I'm sorry. Do you need to be somewhere? You don't have to stay if—"

"It's fine," he says quickly. "I've got plans, but not until later. I can play nurse for a little while longer." He smiles and leans in so his elbows rest against the mattress beside her. "How are you feeling? Is the pain bad?"

She lifts a hand to her jaw, feeling how swollen it is – she must look terrible.

"It's really not that bad. But maybe that's the pain meds talking. I don't know."

"Oh, right," Jeff says, reaching over to her bedside table where the pill bottles are. "You're supposed to get another one before I go. And an antibiotic."

He fiddles with the little blue containers, popping the lid off each and shaking out the correct number of tablets. When he goes to get her a glass of water, she manages to push herself out of bed so she can check her reflection in the mirror above her dresser. Her cheeks are puffy, like she still has the gauze stuffed in them, and the skin is red. She touches her jaw, expecting it to feel hot but it is still cool from the ice packs. She doesn't realize that Jeff has returned until she sees his reflection behind her. When their eyes meet in the mirror, she shrugs.

"I look *awful*."

He grins, cocking his head.

"You look like you took a couple of hard punches to the face, yeah. But you wear it really well."

She laughs and the movement makes her jaw ache a little.

"Come on," he says, putting a hand on her back. "Let's take these pills and get you back to bed so you can rest."

"I'm sick of resting," she grumbles petulantly.

"You won't be after you take your pain killer. I promise."

She knows that he is right, but she swallows down the pills begrudgingly because she really does hate how they knock her out, leaving her with no control over her body. Jeff holds up the edge of her comforter so she can slip back beneath the sheets. He arranges the blankets around her shoulders, even more carefully and gently than Shirley did, and then sits back down in her desk chair.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

"Keeping you company. Until you fall asleep."

She shakes her head against the pillow.

"You don't have to do that. I know you have somewhere to be. I'll probably be out in 20, 30 minutes tops so it's not—"

"Annie," he says very patiently. "Relax. I can spare a half hour."

He pulls out her laptop and angles it beside her hip so they both see it when he starts 'The Naked Gun' on Netflix. She has seen it before with Troy and Abed, but it's the kind of movie that she could watch over and over, particularly with pain killers tripping through her bloodstream. As she predicted, though, she falls asleep early, just after Leslie Nielsen meets the guy from 'Fantasy Island.'

The next time she wakes, her room is completely dark, the bedside lamp turned off and her desk chair back in place.

* * *

For a week and a half, the committee has to deal with a graffiti problem.

Someone keeps tagging the east wall of the administration building with artwork criticizing the Dean in gaudy neon spray paint. Every time they lay a fresh coat of paint over it, the graffiti turns right back up the next day.

It certainly isn't surprising that someone might take issue with the Dean's job performance, but the strange thing about the scribblings is that they use tame language that would barely make a 1950s grade school student blush.

Annie's personal favorite is the one that declares 'The Dean Stinks!', complete with a crude drawing of the man in question and wavy 'stink' lines coming off him like Pig Pen from the Peanuts cartoons.

But as amusing and harmless as the graffiti may be, she finds the entire thing highly annoying. They have wasted plenty of time and money re-painting the wall four times, and she is sick of it. The only answer is to find the person responsible and make sure that he – or she – stops once and for all. The rest of the committee doesn't seem overly concerned about the whole thing, so no one is willing to join her on her stakeout of the east wall – except Jeff.

He refuses at first, but after he is tasked with painting over the latest graffiti, he finds Annie and tells her that they should wear all black so they can't be spotted after dark.

And just like that, he is as invested in this crazy, ultimately insignificant nonsense as she is.

That is the thing that always manages to catch her by surprise, how they can seem so distant from one another one minute, like they may as well be standing on opposite sides of the world, and then jump headfirst into some mess or another with the same crazed, singled-minded focus. She thinks about what the Dean accused them of at the beginning of the semester – that they latch onto these opportunities just to spend time with one another. Maybe there is a grain of truth in that, but they both get genuinely invested so there has to be more to it than that.

The Dean also called the thing between them creepy, which, she thinks, is like the pot calling the kettle black. Obviously, there is an age difference, but she has only ever felt self-conscious about that because other people have made her think that she should. She really doesn't see it as a big deal – there are 12 years between them, not 22 or 32. And while the gap is always going to be there, every time that she adds a candle to her birthday cake, it seems to narrow. At some point, she thinks, it probably won't matter at all.

Of course, maybe there is something creepy about the two of them crouching together behind a bush, waiting for some unknown graffiti artist to make an appearance.

It's not normal anyway.

She can admit that much.

But then, when the culprit finally shows up, decked out in gray hoodie that obscures his face, she knows that both she and Jeff feel the same rush of dizzying adrenaline. He tackles the guy, who is caught red-handed with his can of hot pink spray paint, and for some strange reason, it makes perfect sense that the persistent graffiti artist is the Dean himself, in some desperate act of self-loathing and attention-seeking that only he would think of.

He starts to sob when Annie berates him for wasting so much of the committee's time and money, but still, there's a sense of accomplishment to the whole thing.

Afterward, Jeff snags a couple of beers for them from the fridge in the faculty lounge and they sit on the table in the former study room to toast their success.

"We could probably conquer the world," he says. "If we worked together, I mean."

She grins, because there is a part of her that has always loved their 'us against the world' moments.

"Maybe. If you listened to me the entire time."

He laughs and shakes his head as he takes another sip of his beer.

"Oh, like I've never been right about something and you refused to listen?"

She tilts her head, feigning deep thought.

"No," she says. "Not that I recall."

"Smart ass," he half mutters, half laughs.

She swings her legs against the edge of the table, feeling as giddy as a kid. It is moments like these, when she feels good and happy and comfortable, that she knows there is nothing creepy between them. They are friends, with the potential for something more, and if it takes another five years for them to figure it all out, then that's their business. Jeff turns slightly, so he is angled towards her instead of facing straight ahead. When he reaches out to grab a piece of her hair and twirls it between his fingers, everything inside her liquefies instantly and that good, happy, comfortable feeling is a distant memory.

"I like your hair long like this," he says. "It's …"

She wills herself not move, not to breathe, even when his hand shifts to the back of her hair and she can feel his fingers tracing small circles against her scalp. She feels hot everywhere, from head to toe, and when she lifts her eyes to his, the serious, sober look in them makes her slide toward him so her leg is pressed against his. His hand moves from her hair to her cheek, his thumb stroking whisper-soft along her cheekbone, and he leans in, his gaze falling to her mouth.

She could reach out and pull him toward her, speed things along, but there is something about the moment that makes her want to just let it happen however it will. Jeff moves in even closer, so she can feel his breath on her lips. She refuses to close her eyes, though, because she wants to remember all of the details later, like the patchy spot of stubble on the right side of his jaw and the loose thread at the collar of his shirt. He slides his hand to the back of her neck and moves her toward him, just a fraction of an inch, so she wets her lips because they suddenly feel very dry and just waits.

He stares at her mouth for long, agonizing moment, but instead of closing the distance and kissing her, he drops his head and exhales a long, shaky breath.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I don't know what…"

She is trembling now, but it isn't from excitement or anticipation or lust. Her beer bottle drops to the table beside her with a thud and she slides away from him as if she's been burned.

This time, she walks away, but she still lets him have the last word.

* * *

By the time she makes it home, she is furious.

She flings her bag down on the kitchen counter and paces the floor in front of it, her hands curled into fists. She is grateful that Abed is out with Rachel because he would insist on knowing what has her so upset, and even if she managed to stay strong and not reveal anything, he would somehow figure out the truth anyway.

For a moment, she thinks about calling Jason – because she is wound up seriously tight and maybe what she needs is something to take her mind off stupid Jeff Winger for a little while. But she knows that it wouldn't give her any lasting satisfaction and she is tired of settling for band aid after band aid.

She let Jeff off easy, walking away like she did – and it's not fair. He has made her feel like some stupid child more times than she wants to count just because she doesn't want to pretend that the things that happen between them don't really matter, don't really mean anything, but he is the one who keeps pushing the damn issue. He is the one who refuses to put up or shut up.

So she takes a deep breath, grabs her keys and wallet, and drives over to his apartment like a woman possessed. She is able to sneak into his building behind a cheesy middle-aged guy in a rumpled suit who leers at her the entire three floors of the elevator ride, so she can catch Jeff off-guard.

She pounds on his door insistently, because she figures that he wouldn't expect that of her, and sure enough, when he flings open the door, he first looks annoyed at the intrusion and then surprised when he sees that it's her.

He is barefoot, still wearing his clothes from earlier though he's unbuttoned most of the shirt, so he was probably getting ready for bed.

Well, too damn bad, she thinks. He'll just have to wait.

"We need to talk," she declares, pushing past him into the apartment.

"Annie," he says, and maybe she is too sensitive right now because there seems to be something so condescending in the way he draws out her name. "It's late. Let's wait until the morning when we've both gotten some sleep to do this, okay?"

She drops her hands to her hips, resisting the urge to tap her foot.

"Why do you get to make up all the rules?" she demands. "Why do you get to decide everything? When we're allowed to talk and when we're allowed to touch and whether it means something or not? Why is it all up to you? I'm sick of it."

He crosses his arms against his chest, and his expression is so patient and understanding, which makes her feel like a child throwing a silly tantrum. And it's maddening because she has every right to ask these questions. She should have asked them a long time ago, actually.

"If I remember it right," he says, almost conversationally. "You were the one making the rules that night at your apartment. After we all got kicked out of the bar."

"You were drunk, Jeff. We both know what kind of mess that would have turned into."

He looks away, studying some spot on the floor, but doesn't disagree. His slumped shoulders almost make her lose her nerve, and she suddenly wonders why she came, what she thought this would accomplish.

But she is here, in his apartment, even though it's close to midnight, and she might never work up the courage to do this again.

"You can't keep doing this," she whispers. "You have to stop. Because it's not fair... and I can't take it anymore."

It must be the tone of her voice, all low and broken, that gets to him, because his face shifts and he looks sick, uncomfortable, maybe even ashamed.

"I'm sorry, Annie. Really."

"You keep saying that. But I don't think you mean it."

He steps toward her, shaking his head.

"I do. I don't want to be … But this is all really compli-"

"Don't," she nearly yells. "Don't say complicated. I swear to God, I will kick you right where it hurts if you say that word."

He smiles weakly and lifts a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug.

"It is, though."

It seems only fitting that she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry because Jeff Winger has always seemed to pull her in a million directions. She takes a deep breath, ignoring the way her heart thunders against her chest.

"Okay, fine," she says, as calmly as she can manage. "You know what? Sure. Your feelings are complicated. They're so complicated that after five years you still can't make any sense of them at all. Fine."

He eyes her warily because he knows her well enough to know that she isn't finished.

"But if that's true, then keep them to yourself," she continues. "Stop throwing crumbs at me whenever you want a little attention. I'm tired of it, Jeff."

"That's not what I'm doing," he insists. "That's not what I mean to do anyway."

She sighs, because whether he is telling the truth or not, it isn't enough. Maybe nothing is ever going to be enough. Maybe she just has to accept that. She turns toward the door – she just wants to go home now, fall into bed, and sleep for a few days.

But she feels Jeff's hand curl around her shoulder then and gently turn her around, so they're facing one another in his quiet apartment. He looks as worn out as she feels, and she wonders why they've put themselves through this for so long, how they ever thought it would work out.

"Annie," he whispers. "I don't know what I'm doing…"

She bobs her head even though she doesn't quite understand what he is trying to tell her. But it must be all the encouragement that he needs because he steps toward her and his hands slide to her waist. When she realizes that he is leaning in to kiss her for the first time in nearly four years, that there is no hesitation this time, that he is not going to stop, she feels lightheaded, the ringing in her ears making everything around her seem blurry and hazy – because unlike that night at her apartment when he'd been drinking, she has no good reason to stop him.

So she doesn't, and then his mouth is pressed to hers and her body is clutched to his, and it feels like something she vaguely remembers and nothing that she has ever felt before. She grabs fistfuls of his shirt and hangs on for dear life.

* * *

She is sitting on the sofa in the student lounge, rereading the latest chapter in her criminology text book in preparation for class when she feels his shadow loom over her.

Jeff looks impeccable as always – perfectly mussed hair, unwrinkled designer shirt, and jeans that fit just right. There is a few days' worth of stubble along his jaw too, but even that works for him. – but there is something decidedly off about his expression.

"Hey," he says, almost hesitantly, just before he sits beside on her the sofa.

"Oh, hey, Jeff." She taps her cell phone, sitting on the cushion beside her. "Did you get my text about Duncan needing to push back the committee meeting? It's four instead of three."

"Yeah," he says, bobbing his head distractedly. "I got it. That's fine."

"Good. We have a lot to go over so we need everyone to be there. *On time.*"

"Yeah, fine. I'll be there."

She nods and taps her fingers against the shiny pages of her textbook. Beside her, Jeff bounces his knee anxiously, like he doesn't know quite what to do with himself.

"Is everything okay, Jeff?" she asks. "You seem a little preoccupied."

He opens his mouth to speak, but stops, as if he can't quite find the right words. He shakes his head then, like he's trying to force his thoughts to coalesce into something coherent.

"Unless I was dreaming," he says finally, in a low, steady voice. "We had sex last night."

She smiles, tilting her head coyly.

"Do you have a lot of sexy dreams about me?" she teases. "Is that why you're so confused?"

His mouth drops open again, and he seems almost paralyzed by her blasé attitude. The truth, though, is that she is having the hardest time playing it cool, putting up this breezy, carefree front so he won't be able to tell that she has spent every minute since she left his apartment in the pre-dawn light analyzing, obsessing, and agonizing over every detail of their night together. She has been stuck on the stupid, ridiculous fact that when she finally got around to going to bed with Jeff Winger, she wasn't wearing a matching bra and panties set – all because she needed to do laundry and had to throw on a pink, orange and white floral print bra and blue and purple polka dot boy shorts that morning, never expecting that anyone would see them. Why couldn't it have happened when she was wearing a lacy black set or the red satin?

"Annie, are you kidding me here?"

He sounds as frustrated as she has ever heard him and she can't help but enjoy it for a moment – he has frustrated the hell out of her on nearly a daily basis for years, so it seems only fair. She closes her text book and slides it back into her bag, giving him her undivided attention.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I couldn't resist." She smoothes her hands over her pants to get rid of the wrinkles and shrugs. "Yes. We had sex last night."

"And?" he prods.

"And what?"

He gapes at her in disbelief.

"You don't think there's anything to say about it?"

"It was a lot of fun," she says simply – and that is something of lie because she doesn't really think that 'fun' captures the reality of the experience. It was more intense than she ever imagined, maybe even more intense than she wanted it to be, like he branded every inch of her skin that he touched and now she will never be able to look at him again and not remember the feel of him searing her from the inside out.

He runs a hand through his hair, not seeming to care that he has disrupted the artfully sculpted bedhead.

"Well, yeah. It was, but that's not really what I meant."

"What else is there to say?" she asks. "I mean, we're two consenting adults who got caught up in the moment. End of story."

"End of story?" he repeats incredulously. "Seriously, Annie?"

"Jeff, you've explained to me enough times that our relationship is strictly platonic. Now, I guess I never thought of sex as platonic, but you would know better than me so …"

He frowns, his jaw clenched.

"I just thought you'd want to have some big conversation about where we go from here and all that."

"But we already know, don't we?" she asks rhetorically. "We'll just move on as if it never happened. Like we always do."

He looks at her like he is trying to decide whether to debate her or agree with her. It kills her to say the words because they are the worst kind of lie, the kind that tastes like sawdust as it soon as it falls out of her mouth. There isn't any real way to move on from this, but she is still determined to walk away from him with her head held high before he can do it to her.

"I guess," he says. "I just thought..."

"Well, you can stop thinking," she tells him, patting his knee – which is a mistake because it reminds how perfectly firm every inch of him is and that she would like nothing more than to push him back on the couch, undress him with her teeth, and relive every painfully hot moment of last night. "It's fine. But I've got to go. I'm going to be late for Professor Hickey's class and he'll never let me hear the end of it." She grabs her bag and conjures up a bright smile. "See you later."

When she glances back at him and sees the befuddled expression on his face, she almost feels guilty.

* * *

Three hours later, the guilt is long gone.

Because she hates how jittery she feels just sitting at the same table with Jeff for the committee meeting and it seems like it's all his fault.

She also hates the fact that she spent nearly ten minutes in her criminology class doodling his name in the margins of her notebook – cursive, print, block letters, she'd covered them all before she realized what she was doing and forced herself to sit up straight and hang on every word that fell out of Professor Hickey's mouth like they had the power to change her life. She held her pen in a white-knuckle grip, though, forgoing note-taking for the first time in her academic career for fear that it would be Jeff's name that she scribbled down and not the finer points of criminal investigative techniques.

Fine, she thinks testily. There is always going to be some pining teenager somewhere inside of her. She will never grow up to be as cool and cynical and detached as Jeff – so what? For as much as he brags about his freewheeling, uncomplicated existence, he has never struck her as a particularly happy person.

Following his example is definitely not the way to true and abiding happiness.

Having sex and walking away isn't either – not for her anyway.

When she left Jeff's apartment early this morning, she knew that she wouldn't be seeing Jason again because now she fully understands the difference between casual sex and sex with someone that she has feelings for, and there is no contest in her mind.

So what if she's not the kind of girl who wants to just have an itch scratched? So what if she wants a little more than that, to feel connected to someone? Jeff and Britta and Jason and whoever else can think that makes her naive or idealistic or immature or conventional – she doesn't really care.

She is going to live life on her terms – and she can't imagine anything more grown up than that.

So she is not about to head down the same road with Jeff that she just did with Jason. She won't sleep with him and have it mean nothing. She won't do the whole no-strings thing in the hope that someday he'll realize how much he really cares about her – because while she isn't hoping for happily ever after or a diamond ring, she needs something more from him and she won't compromise on that.

But God, she does want to sleep with him again.

She wants to know if last night was a fluke, if years of pent-up sexual tension made it more than it could ever be again. She wants to feel and taste his skin again, see if it's as delicious as she remembers.

And there was that one point, when she hovered over him, running her fingertips over his stomach, and he actually trembled – she actually made Jeff Winger tremble – and she felt so powerful in that moment, so sexy - she definitely wants to feel that again.

He barely gives her a minute to think either because he corners her after the meeting has wrapped up, when they're the only ones left in room. She looks up at him with a faint smile, hoping he can't see the way her hands shake as gathers up her notepad and pen.

"I hope you're not mad about getting stuck with book drive duty," she says, the first thing that comes to mind. "You know I can't trust Duncan and Chang to handle it by themselves."

"No. It's fine. Whatever."

It is completely unlike him to accept such a demanding assignment without putting up a fight, so he is obviously as distracted by last night's activities as she is and she finds some comfort in that.

"Next week, I promise you'll get the easiest assignment. Okay?"

He nods absently, but she doubts that he's even heard her.

"I'm sorry," he says, and his voice has the confident, charming lilt that it usually does when he is about to talk his way out – or into - something. "But I'm still a little unclear about our earlier conversation."

"What conversation?" she asks, unable to meet his eyes as she puts her things in her bag for fear that he'll see through her.

Jeff throws up his hands in clear and obvious frustration.

"Okay, maybe this was cute in the beginning but now it's just pissing me off. You know damn well what conversation I'm talking about. The one about the sex we had."

She shrugs, and she thinks that she must be doing a pretty good job of appearing indifferent - if she does say so herself – because he seems pretty flustered.

"What was unclear about it? I thought we said all there is to say."

He pauses for a long moment, and that seems to be all it takes for him to get himself together. Because when he takes a step toward her and smiles, he looks as cocky as ever.

"Annie. Come on," he drawls. "I know you. I know what you're doing. You think if you play hard to get, I'll fall at your feet and declare my undying love. It's not a bad plan, really, but you had to know I'd see right through it."

It amazes her how fast anger seizes control of her – she wants to slap him, punch him, kick him right in the damn groin so he can't even think about having sex with anyone without blinding, white-hot pain.

"I'm not playing hard to get," she grits out, and now there is nothing left to do but be honest. "What I'm doing is making a pre-emptive strike against you telling me once again that I've misinterpreted or read into what's happened between us. It was a mistake; it didn't mean anything – I get it."

He blinks and all the arrogance seems to bleed out of him in an instant.

"You think I'd sleep with you and pretend it didn't mean anything?"

He sounds so hurt and so wounded by the mere thought that it only makes her angrier. She crosses her arms over her chest and glares at him.

"Isn't that what you've done every time we've gotten close?"

He shakes his head, slow and tired.

"Annie, I've only been trying to protect you. I know that—"

"No," she snaps. "Don't put this off on me. This is about you. This is about your insecurities. If you don't have feelings for me and this is all just some physical thing that you needed to get out of your system, then fine. I'll accept that. But if you're avoiding what's happening between us because you're worried about what Shirley and Britta might think or the snide comments that Duncan or the Dean will make, then you're a coward and I don't want to be with you anyway."

She grabs her bag and tries to push past him, but his hand wraps around her elbow, holding her in place.

"That's not what this is about," he insists. "It's not like …what happens if we try this and it doesn't work out? What happens to our friendship and our friendships with everyone else? Because my track record speaks for itself, Annie. I'm not built for … whatever kind of future you're imagining."

Once again, he is being completely unfair. Because the truth is, she doesn't have any concrete future imagined with him – silly daydreams that she might have had in the past about being married to him when she was sick of fantasizing about Zac Efron don't count. For all the times that she's thought about what being with him would be like, no complete picture would ever come to mind.

She even acknowledges that there is the very real possibility that they would be an utter disaster together, that they would only make each other crazy and miserable. There are even times when she thinks of it as something that they just need to get out of their systems herself, that they just need to resolve the tension once and for all so they can really and truly move on.

She is just sick to death of pretending that it doesn't exist at all. She is sick of being too scared to see where it might go.

"I don't know what happens if it doesn't work out," she tells him honestly. "But that's the thing, Jeff. You never know. It's a risk because all relationships are a risk."

He drops his hands to his hips and lowers his head. Everything about his body language screams defeat.

"I don't know if I want to risk you," he says. "I don't know if I can."

She nods – because she understands the feeling well enough.

"If you keep pretending that we're just pals and holding me at arm's length, you may lose me anyway."

His head jerks up, and his expression is tense and annoyed.

"Are you giving me an ultimatum?"

"No," she says with hesitation. "I'm just telling you the truth. We can't stay in this limbo forever. All that's going to do is cause resentment and bitterness. I don't want that for us."

She shrugs again, and they stand there for a moment, neither saying a word. There isn't anything left to say, she thinks.

So she pats his arm awkwardly and marches for the door.

For once, she gets the last word.


	5. Chapter 5

Troy is sailing around the world, high on adventure and excitement, but that means that he usually doesn't have access to an internet connection.

Since he's been gone, they've only been able to Skype three times. Usually, Abed hogs the conversation too, so Annie only gets to say a few words to Troy before he has to run off to get supplies or hit the high seas again.

She lucks out late one night when Abed is at a movie with Rachel and she is at home working on her final project for Hickey's class and Troy just so happens to be available to talk. To start off, he wants to hear all about Abed and Rachel from Annie's perspective, whether she thinks they're a good fit, if she thinks that they will last. Then she has to catch him up on what's happened on 'Scandal' because Abed doesn't watch and Troy can't wait another nine months to know what's going on. He asks about her criminology classes because he has this vision of her opening a detective agency one day and he and Abed getting to wear all sorts of undercover costumes to do surveillance for her. He asks how Shirley, Britta and Jeff are doing, he asks if the committee has been able to do anything about the spiders in the men's room outside the cafeteria because it's his favorite, and he asks if Chang's fallen off the deep end again yet.

He doesn't talk much about himself, even when she asks about where he's been and what he's seen. She doesn't know if it's because he sees his journey as something personal and doesn't want to share it just yet or he just misses home that much.

"Oh," he says excitedly, just as they're about to end their session. "Almost forgot - I got a parrot! He's red and yellow and blue and totally cool. I'd show him to you but he's sleeping right now. And I haven't named him yet because I can't come up with anything that fits him. I set the bar seriously high with Annie's Boobs..."

She laughs, missing Troy so much more in this moment when she's actually talking to him and looking at him than she has in all the previous months combined.

Which may be why she finds herself blurting out "I slept with Jeff," for no reason.

Troy puckers his mouth in an astonished "O" and widens his eyes comically.

"Whoa. That is huge news… why didn't you lead with that?"

She shrugs.

"It's the first time I've even said it out loud. I haven't told anyone else…"

The fact that Troy is halfway around the world, without reliable access to communication devices, makes him the ideal person to tell. She won't have to face him tomorrow, she doesn't have to worry about him telling anyone, and he won't observe every moment that happens between her and Jeff with a keen analytical eye, trying to decipher every interaction for meaning.

It is a safe way to get it off her chest – and she has been bursting with the need to tell someone for days now.

"How was it?" Troy asks, lowering his voice like someone might overhear. "Cause Britta said that—"

"Troy! Don't be gross. I'm not telling you how it was … and I don't need to be reminded that I've slept with yet another guy that Britta did first."

"We've got a pretty small circle of friends. You gotta figure that there'd be some overlap. I mean, it's not like—"

"That's really not my point," she says. "What am I supposed to do now?"

Troy looks confused.

"What do you mean? Are you pregnant or something?"

"God no. But it's just… this is Jeff. You know how he is. And I think you know how I feel about him. But now I'm just supposed to be another notch in his bedpost and still hang out with him and be his friend? I don't know if I can do that."

"Why'd you sleep with him if there's all this unresolved crap between you?"

She sighs, because it is a valid question, one that she has been asking herself ever since that night.

"It just sort of happened," she says.

Troy nods.

"Yeah. I get it. I mean, dude's been into you since like… well, I kind of can't remember when he wasn't, so Abed and I pretty much figured it would happen eventually. But Abed thought it would be after some kind of significant event, like graduation, and I told him it would probably happen totally randomly, when you two just kind of exploded with all that unresolved sexual tension. That's what happened, isn't it? I mean, you two didn't do it at a wedding or an awards banquet or something, did you?"

"Troy, that's not—"

"I'm gonna tell you something and I really don't want you to take offense," he says, and she bristles immediately because whenever people say something like that, it's like they expect a free pass to offend you. "You think too much, Annie. Like all of the time. Sometimes, you just gotta let things happen, however they're going to. Maybe you and Jeff can't be friends anymore. Maybe you'll be even better friends. And maybe you'll get married and have a bunch of kids. Who knows? All the thinking in the world isn't gonna tell you what happens. You've got to let go a little and just see what happens."

She frowns.

"How does that help me now, though? You know, with the way I feel?"

Troy lifts his shoulders.

"Go to the diner on Grand Avenue and have a piece of their key lime pie," he says. "That always makes me feel better."

When she ends her session with Troy, she wants to tell herself that she feels better just having talked about everything, but it's not true. She is just as confused, just as tied in knots, as she's been all along.

* * *

She is overcompensating.

Since they slept together, she has gone out of her way to be exceedingly polite to Jeff. It is her clumsy way of proving to both of them that everything can stay the same between them, that their entire relationship hasn't unraveled because they spent four hours together in his bed.

So she has laughed at his jokes, given him the easiest committee assignments, maintained steady eye contact when they speak, snagged the last packet of fat-free honey mustard dressing for him when he was late to lunch the other day, anything to show him that things are fine and normal.

For his part, Jeff has mostly been himself. She half expected him to go into jerk mode, ignoring her or treating her like she's five years old again. But aside from seeming just a little hesitant around her, there is nothing about his behavior that would indicate that they slept together.

So maybe it's possible for them to just move on, she thinks.

With time.

Lots and lots of time.

Shirley and Britta invite her to join them at a self-defense class that they're taking one night after a committee meeting, but she has to clean up the study room after they spent all afternoon putting together mailers for an upcoming open house and she is tired so she declines. After they file out of the room, she notices that Jeff has hung around and is at the other end of the table, gathering up the leftover piles of campus maps and class schedules.

"Not in the mood to kick a little butt tonight?" he asks, with a smile.

She shrugs, smiling back.

"I've just got a lot to do."

He bobs his head and shuffles his pile of handouts against the table to straighten them.

"Plans with Jason?" he asks, and she can tell how hard he is trying to sound casual.

Still, the question alone nearly makes her drop the folders in her hands, and she covers only by clutching them against her stomach.

"No," she says, unable to meet his eyes. "It's not… I actually told him we shouldn't see each other anymore."

She sneaks a peek at Jeff, and he is nodding absently, like they are discussing nothing more than the weather. They finish cleaning up the table in silence, and she tells herself that if she is feeling tension, it is only in her own mind.

Because they are obviously fine. They are still friends who can chat about their personal lives without it getting weird or uncomfortable.

Everything is fine.

When they get all the folders put away in the right boxes, she smiles up at him, a little more brightly than is probably necessary.

"Thank you. I didn't expect anyone to stay and help, so it's … thanks."

He shrugs, lugging a box up onto the counter.

"You've been giving me all the softball stuff lately at the meetings. This is my small way of saying thanks."

They smile at one another, and for a moment, she doesn't have to convince herself that everything will be all right. Jeff cocks his head, like he's thinking carefully about something, and gestures toward the door.

"You want to go grab a drink?" he asks then. "Or something to eat?"

It is ridiculous, but the invitation catches her completely off-guard and she feels every inch of her skin go up in flames. Because a few weeks ago, he could have asked the question and it would have been harmless, an honest offer for food, drink and conversation. Now, there is the implication of something more, the promise of skin on skin, his fingers tangled in her hair, her mouth on his, his body heavy, warm, and perfect on top of hers.

If she isn't careful, she will find herself sliding into something dangerous and destructive with him.

She can't let herself do it.

"Jeff," she says, trying not to sound judgmental or scolding. "I just stopped doing the whole no-strings thing with a guy I didn't even like. I can't start doing it with you."

He scrunches his face in what can only be described as absolute confusion.

"Excuse me?"

"I can't do the whole casual thing with you," she explains. "I can't just be your friend all day and sleep with you at night. Because our relationship means something to me and I won't screw it up just for some sex."

He surprises her again by laughing – but it isn't his usual laugh; there is a dark edge to it that makes her take a step back from him.

"So you think our relationship doesn't mean anything to me and I'm willing to screw it up for some sex? Is that what you're saying?"

She sighs, shaking her head.

"No. I'm just … You do things like this, Jeff. You can sleep with someone and keep it separate from what you're feeling. I've learned that I can't do that. Not with someone I don't care about and definitely not with someone that I do."

"I just asked you to dinner, Annie," he snaps. "If you saw that as some sort of request for casual sex, that's on you."

"I'm sorry," she says, though she is anything but considering how quickly he's turned on her. "After years of having to read between the lines with you, I still get the message wrong sometimes. Silly me."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means you never just say what you mean. Or feel. So I'm always left guessing. And maybe I'm just not that good at it."

She grabs her bag from the table, determined to get out of here before the conversation takes a really ugly turn. But Jeff is a step ahead of her, and he follows her to the door, holding a hand out to keep her from opening it. He is literally breathing down her neck, and she shivers even as her skin goes hot.

"You know how I feel," he nearly growls.

"How?" she cries, and she hates how whiny she sounds. "How would I know? Every time I've thought I did, you tell me I'm imagining it or too young or something equally insulting."

"That's the damn point, Annie. I wouldn't be so uncomfortable with all of this if it wasn't … you know, something real."

She turns slowly, so she is facing him and looks up into his face. She knows that her eyes are glassy, that he will be able to tell that tears are threatening, but she is too tired to care.

"Well, I can't do this …" She gestures at the small space between them. "If you're not willing to meet me half way."

He hangs his head, lips pursed almost petulantly, so she turns away from him again.

When she pushes on the door now, he doesn't fight her.

* * *

She isn't surprised to walk in on Britta and Jeff yelling at one another.

They fight on a nearly daily basis, usually over topics as insignificant as whether 'Thelma and Louise' is overrated or lime Skittles are better than green apple. The arguments can get heated, but they usually don't require intervention – they just sort of fizzle out on their own.

It's almost a relief to see them at each other's throats through the windows of the old study room, actually – anything that keeps Jeff's attention away from her seems like a good thing these days.

When she opens the door and hears what they're arguing about, though, she is surprised – and definitely not relieved.

"She's not some blow-up doll that you can take out whenever you feel like playing, Jeff. She's—"

"Yeah, because that's really how I see her, Britta."

Annie freezes in the doorway because it doesn't take a genius to know that they're talking about her. She has no idea how Britta could have found out that they slept together – she hasn't told anyone other than Troy and Jeff definitely wouldn't offer up the information willingly. Maybe Britta just sensed that something is off between them and made an educated guess as to what might be the cause.

"If you need some sweet, young thing to stroke your ego," Britta says. "Don't pick someone who actually cares about you. Because you're not just going to screw her over. You're gonna wind up screwing yourself over too."

"You don't know what you're talking about, Britta, so just can it."

Annie lets the door swing heavily behind her, so the blinds rattle against the glass and draw their attention. It's almost amusing, how they both look at her with matching deer-in-the-headlights expressions.

"What's going on?" she asks coolly.

"Annie," Britta says gently, taking a step toward her. "I was just trying to—"

"She was just butting her nose in where it doesn't belong," Jeff declares. "In stuff that she doesn't know anything about."

Annie crosses her arms over her chest and shakes her head.

"If you're talking about me," she says. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't do it behind my back. I know your heart is probably in the right place, Britta, but I'm not a child who needs protecting."

"No, Annie. It's not like that. I just …"

Britta looks at Jeff, who is in a defensive pose, hands at his hips.

"Do you mind?" she asks snidely.

He glares at her, his jaw clenched tight, but doesn't say a word. When he looks over at Annie, his expression softens just a bit, but she darts her eyes away before he can really get to her. He stalks out of the room a second later, the door banging closed behind him.

"Annie," Britta says softly, leading her over to the table. "Do you remember a few years back when my ex-boyfriend came to town and I needed a little help reigning myself in?"

Annie sighs, but bobs her head.

"I'm just trying to return the favor."

"Jeff and I aren't anything like—"

"No," Britta says. "Of course not. And you're much stronger than I am. But that doesn't mean you don't need a little help sometimes. We all need a little help sometimes."

There is something about Britta's sympathetic, understanding tone that sends Annie as close to tears as she can get without actually crying. Her eyes feel hot with it, and she hates that she could lose it all so quickly. Because as nice as Britta is being, talking to her about Jeff is pretty damn uncomfortable, given their history. And maybe there is still something of a child in Annie because there is part of her that sometimes can't help thinking that he was Britta's first and she is poaching yet another of Britta's guys.

But Jeff is a person, not a possession.

He doesn't belong to anybody – first, second or last.

She wipes at her eyes roughly, annoyed when her fingers come back damp.

"He just makes me feel so much," she whispers. "Even when I don't want to. Even when I wish it would all just go away."

Britta puts an arm around her, holding on tight.

"I know he can be a serious a-hole, but I really don't think he means to hurt you."

Annie shrugs, just a half-hearted lift of her shoulder. She feels very tired and very old all of sudden, like everything requires a little more effort that she can muster.

"But if that's what he does," she says. "Does it really matter if he means to or not?"

Britta sighs, nodding against Annie's shoulder.

"Wanna reenact the cliché from just about every stupid romantic comedy known to man and go get plastered?"

Annie laughs, but shakes her head.

"Okay," Britta says. "How about we pick up a pint of Ben and Jerry's and … wait, that's not really any better."

Instead, they wind up going bowling, and somehow between the ugly red and navy shoes and greasy nachos with day-glo orange cheese sauce, they wind up having a lot of fun. Neither of them bowls higher than 74 in any of their six games, but the guy behind the shoe counter gives them each a ridiculous little hot pink bowling pin made of plastic that they usually hand out to kids in tribute to their persistence.

When they say goodbye in the parking lot, Britta tugs on the hem of her jacket.

"At the end of the day," she says. "He's just a guy, Annie. And maybe it doesn't seem like it now, but there are a lot of them out there."

As she drives home, Annie tries to make that mean something, tries to find a way to use it to make herself feel better. But she goes to sleep, feeling lonelier than ever.

* * *

Sometimes, she thinks that the only thing that gets her through the ridiculousness that is her life is her sense of humor.

Because if she weren't able to laugh at the mess of crepe paper, deflated balloons, spilled punch, and smashed cookie crumbs, she would probably be crying.

When she thinks of the amount of time and effort that she put into this stupid end of semester dance, its ignominious end certainly seems worthy of tears. But then, she doesn't really know what else she was expecting – a riot over the Dean's decision to start charging for locker usage actually seems pretty tame by Greendale's craziness standards.

Still, she sits on the floor with back against the wall in the abandoned cafeteria, surrounded by the debris of yet another nice thing that she tried to do for this damn school, feeling utterly defeated. So when the door creaks open and Jeff walks in, she feels a stunning sense of relief just at the sight of him - despite the mess between them lately. He doesn't say anything as he comes to sit down beside her, so she just watches him.

There are moments when just being with him like this feels like enough, and she wishes that she could bottle that feeling, hold onto it for all the other times when she wants something more.

"Sometimes," he starts to say. "No. Strike that. *Most* times, I don't know why you bother with this place."

She nods slowly.

"Hickey told me the same thing once. I guess I'm insane. Isn't that what they say insanity is? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?"

Jeff picks up a scrap of torn crepe paper, twirling it idly between his fingers.

"I don't think you do it because you're insane," he says. "You do it because you're hopeful. You have hope that things don't always have to go to hell. Even here."

She frowns, staring down at her lap.

"Right," she agrees. "Because I'm just so naive."

"No. No, that's not what I'm saying." He laughs humorlessly. "You know, sometimes I wonder if I'm speaking a completely different language when I talk to you or something. Because you always misunderstand… or jump to the wrong conclusions."

When she looks up at him, he is smiling that soft, gentle smile that is all hers, and it's like the world suddenly starts spinning in an entirely different direction.

"Well, then, spell out it for me," she says. "So I can't misunderstand."

He bobs his head, almost like it is something he owes her.

"One of the things I admire most about you is that you're strong enough to have that hope. It doesn't come from being naïve, Annie. It comes from being brave."

"I don't know how brave I really am," she tells him, and she really isn't. But he isn't wrong about her being hopeful – she hopes all the time that one day she will be brave enough for anything.

She thinks suddenly of her one trip to Disneyland when she was 10 years old, how she chickened out of going on Space Mountain at the last minute because she was just too scared. She'd assumed that she would be back another year and could try again – but that was the last family vacation that they ever took. Her mother and father didn't divorce for another five years, but the cracks were already there, her world had already shifted.

Jeff shakes his head, and he looks as vulnerable and unguarded as she has ever seen him.

"I'm definitely not," he says quietly. "And that's why…"

He trails off, dropping his chin to his chest. It doesn't matter, though, because for once, she understands exactly what he is trying to tell her, no misunderstandings or wrong conclusions.

"But isn't that what being an adult is all about?" she asks gently. "Doing the things that scare you even when don't feel very brave?"

He smiles a little sadly and nudges the pointy tip of her heel with his boot.

"Well, see that's the thing, Annie. I'm not an adult. We both know that."

She feels immeasurably sad then and leans into him, her shoulder slumping heavily against his so he is practically holding her up.

"I'm trying to be one," she says. "But I don't know how good I am at it."

He presses his lips to her hairline, breathing out softly.

"You're good at everything you do," he says, and there is a huskiness to his voice, like maybe he is remembering their one night together, how they fit together even when they didn't really know what they were doing.

"Jeff," she sighs, curling her hand around his wrist.

"It's okay," he whispers. "It'll be okay."

She closes her eyes, trying to hope.

* * *

When she gets to the old study room, Jeff, Hickey, and Abed are already there. It's a little strange because the meeting doesn't start for another ten minutes and she is almost always the first person to arrive.

Things get stranger, though, when she pulls out her chair and find a blue plastic bag with something fairly large and lumpy inside. She looks at it in confusion, glancing around the table to see if anyone is watching her, but the guys are all otherwise occupied – Hickey with the newspaper, Abed with a graphic novel, and Jeff with his phone.

"What's this?" she asks, holding up the bag.

"Looks like a bag," Hickey says dryly, and Abed nods.

Jeff shrugs a shoulder, not looking up from his phone's screen.

"I know it's a bag," she says impatiently. "What's it doing on my chair?"

"Someone must have left it for you," Abed says. "We're the only ones who use this room and you always sit there, so it stands to reason that you were the intended recipient."

"Was it here when you came in?"

Abed narrows his eyes, pointing at the head of the table.

"Jeff was here first."

Annie glances his way. His fingers don't still on his phone.

"I wasn't really paying attention," he says.

She sits down, places the bag in her lap, and reaches inside. Her fingers touch something soft and plush, so she's not surprised when the object that she tugs from the bag turns out to be a stuffed animal. She is a little amazed, though, when she realizes that it is a stuffed dog - a stuffed black dog with a red collar and beautiful chocolate-colored glass eyes. She runs her fingers along its back, like she is petting an actual puppy.

"It's a dog," Abed says inanely.

She looks up in confusion, having almost forgotten that there was anyone else in the room. She glances over at Jeff, who is still playing with his phone but spares a quick peek at the item in question.

"Looks like a Lab," he says casually.

"It does," she agrees.

He nods, smiling faintly, and she smiles back, her cheeks warm.

"Who would leave you a stuffed animal?" Abed wonders. "Ooh, maybe it's from a secret admirer…"

She doesn't bother to respond, and luckily, Britta and Duncan filter in with a story about some psychology experiment that they're working on and its surprising results. Annie sets the dog on the table, just beside her seat, and any time someone asks about it, she just shrugs her shoulders coyly.

It's not really a lie to say she doesn't know how to explain it.

When the meeting's over, she takes her time packing up her stuff, so the rest of the group is gone before she calls out to him just as he is about to make his way out of the library. He turns back like he was just waiting for her to make the first move, but his smile is still just a little bit bashful.

She lifts up the dog, shaking one of its paws.

"Jeff. What is this?"

"I thought it could tide you over," he says. "You know, until you have a bigger apartment and time for a dog."

She lets out a shaky breath that is equal parts sigh and laugh.

"That is just…" She shakes her head, trying to find the words. She won't cry because that would be ridiculous, even if this is the kind of gesture that she never would have expected from him in a million years. "It's really sweet."

He looks pleased, but also a little embarrassed.

"Yeah, well…" he says. "If you tell anyone about this, I swear to God, I'm going right to Shirley and telling her what a filthy, blasphemous mouth you have when you get really excited. She'll be lecturing you and forcing you into prayer circles for the foreseeable future."

Annie laughs and steps closer, so the space between them is only as wide as the stuffed dog.

"My lips are sealed," she whispers.

"Well, let's not get crazy now."

He is grinning as he bends down to kiss her, and she doesn't care that it's happening in the middle of the old study room, with floor to ceiling glass windows in front of them that give everyone a free show. She loops an arm around his neck for better leverage and kisses him like she has been waiting five years for this moment. The poor stuffed dog is crushed between them, an afterthought at this point.

Jeff kisses his way to her cheek, his hands tangled in her hair.

"I don't know how to do this," he whispers, and he sounds nervous and unsure. There is something so boyish and charming about him like this that she finds herself holding him a little tighter. "And I really don't know how to do it with you."

"Me either," she says. "So we'll just make it up as we go along."

He smirks, the self-satisfied, know-it-all mask back in place.

"You can do that? Not have a plan or a roadmap or anything?"

The truth, of course, is that she is terrified of what they're about to start, but she is actually more terrified of what might happen if they don't.

So she makes the leap.

"I can try," she tells him.

He cocks his head, looking thoughtful. When he smiles, she feels it everywhere at once.

"So can I."


End file.
